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The former “Le Murate” prison restoration project was very complex and touched several areas of intervention. The Public and Residential Construction Office of the Municipality of Florence, together with the architect Renzo Piano, decided to apply a functionally layered design to the complex (a former medieval convent converted into prison in the 19th century and disused since 1983), in order to integrate it in the complexity of the modern city. Moreover, the design aims at elevating the restored area to the rank of urban district. The intervention affected four buildings and two of the interior courtyards: the main Murate building (E building) with a central full-height gallery (3 floors) where the cells and service rooms for the convicts used to be; the A building, on Dell'Angolo street that was also used for detention; the B building, with the access porch to courtyard #4, used for summer events; the A1 building, diagonally opposite to the A building (used as barn in the 19th century), that has a peculiar structure and was partially used for solitary confinement cells (disused since the 70s); the courtyard #2 that corresponds to the 16th century convent courtyard (accessible from the A1 building porch and courtyard #1, presently used by the Public Prosecutor's office; and courtyard #4, that once used to be the courtyard of the convent, but has been completely transformed when the building became a prison.
After the first intervention, the complex has become a single building unit, and the city can now access and use the former prison and in particular its most important courtyards. Moreover, the whole complex is now longitudinally accessible to pedestrians. The E building will form the pedestrian link between Dell'Angolo street and Ghibellina street and features a diagonal empty space, an actual passageway overlooked by the cells' balconies. The project aims at promoting the optimization of empty spaces for pedestrian passage. For this reason, the roof has been removed, preserving the brick groins, and the first two floors have been linked with an pointed centering that statically allowed the widening of the balconies to 120 cm, as prescribed by current regulations. Moreover, the internal height has been divided to create another passageway on the first floor. The third floor balcony has been kept to be used for the residences. Functionally, the space has been divided as follows: social an commercial spaces on the ground floor, offices on the first floor, and residences on the upper floors. The facades overlooking the courtyards have been kept as they were up to the second floor, where new openings have been created. For the facades overlooking the street, the second floor false roof has been removed to allow full visibility of the central gallery structure. On the ground floor, new wide openings enhance the internal gallery outline. At the residences level of the internal facades, bow-windows were inserted to enhance internal comfort and preserve the external look of the facade, including the high windowsills (1.5 m from the floor). The B building features balconies and cells on one side. The first, second, and third floor of this building have been transformed in residences, while on the ground floor social and commercial spaces will transform the passage on Dell'Angolo street in a public space. Here, the windows have been reopened and the wall under them has been torn down to create open portals with gates for night-time use. As in the E building, on this building's internal facades new openings have been created to insert bow-windows. A raised skirting board was added to the internal facade of the first floor by tearing down the windowsills of five windows. This part is covered by a steel canopy that links it to a protected internal area. The A1 building (an ancient barn later used for solitary confinement cells) only has three levels: two double-height floors made of superimposed rooms with columns and ribbed vaults, and a third level of cells without outside-facing. The third floor of this respectfully restored building will house the historical prison documentation center and the rooms with columns will become public spaces. The A building on Dell'Angolo street features a porch and three levels of cells. The porch has been kept as it was, while the upper levels now contain offices accessible through internal steel stairs. Courtyard #2 has been covered using Metra's Poliedra-Sky 50 transparent covering and constitutes an extension to the A1 building (use for public purposes). Courtyard #4 has been transformed into a square accessible from the B building with new paving, furniture, trees, and a raised area covered by a metal canopy.
The bow-windows solution
In contrast with the structure of the detention units, the design of this project includes the creation of a new, large opening (about 9 square meters), that allows the apartments to overlook the Murate and Madonna della Neve squares. Several cells have been added up thanks to steel rings (some of which are visible) and large openings have been created in order to make the apartments. In order to find the right shape and size for the bow-windows , several possibilities have been tried thanks to photomaps of the main facade. Then, a one to one scale sample was placed directly on the facade and used to chose the materials (from colored ceramic to copper) that were used in the end. Thanks to a large ring on the external facade, the bow-windows allowed to link two openings by tearing down the below facade walls. The bow-windows helped recovering wall surface (about 60 cm x 3 m) that, together with the projection, increased the dimensions of the apartments. The main fixture required strategic design research in order to obtain minimal fragmentation and meet the needs of the users (mainly elderly people). The implemented system is METRA NC 72 STH with 4 panels, 2 of which are fixed and the other 2, at the top, can be opened. Safety fixtures can be easily cleaned since one of the top panels slides open and the other can be opened from the inside. Moreover, the opening handle of the sliding fixture has undergone several transformations for better handiness. In order to avoid summer overheating due to solar irradiation, the fixtures feature an external motorized shutter that allows total light control throughout the day. The shutter is made of metal blades that can be lifted and reclined at every angle of the window. The slides can be oriented upwards to let the light in and, at the same time, partially lift the shutter, creating a protective layer.
The Project
Design: ERP - Public and Residential Construction Office of the Municipality of Florence
Fabrication: Calderone Infissi S.r.l., Pace del Mela (Messina)
Customer: “Le Murate” Società Consortile Corso - Schepis S.r.l., Pace del Mela (Messina)
Metra systems: NC 72 STH, Poliedra-Sky 50
Finish: bronze coating and brown Raffaello
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