TEMPIETTO R.
Cork Oak Nursery for the Ramarro Association.
Caltagirone, Sicily.

Near Caltagirone, in Sicily, there is a forest of cork oaks. Historically, this forest functioned as a buffer zone between urbanized areas and the countryside and was maintained as a collective resource accessible to the local population.

Today, the forest is a protected natural area frequently threatened by malicious and criminal arson. Bosco Colto is an initiative that transforms the forest into a permanent site of research: a living campus where new ways of inhabiting the territory are explored through the relationship between people, plants, and animals.

Within this context, I was invited to work with architecture students on the design and construction of a nursery to replace an existing greenhouse used by the Ramarro Association for the propagation of cork oak seedlings, which had been destroyed by fire in previous years.

The project was developed as a didactic construction site, conceived and built at a 1:1 scale. The structure is a reticular wooden system made entirely of timber profiles with a 24 × 48 mm cross-section, using roof battens as the sole construction element.

Tempietto R. functions as an open-air classroom and working space that houses the nursery and protects young oak trees from the harsh southern sun. The structure is conceived as an architectural brace: a temporary framework designed to support climbing vegetation that will gradually replace it over time, allowing architecture to dissolve into the surrounding landscape.

Mediate - The project mediates architectural knowledge through hands-on construction, transferring design and building skills to students and volunteers by means of a collective, 1:1 learning process.

Activate - Tempietto R. activates the territory by restoring an essential ecological function and supporting the ongoing work of the Ramarro Association in protecting and regenerating the cork oak forest.