Honorable Mention International Prize, Grazzini Tonazzini + Colombo

Cappella Farnocchia, Grazzini Tonazzini + Colombo, Italy

Introspective architecture. A small-scale project, just 10 square meters in area, that results from a participatory construction process with the community. The project, born out of the need to have a recognizable landmark in the mountain village of Farnocchia, is signed by a young studio and was selected for the strength of the architecture in being able to create an intimate space with a simple and sensitive, personal and reflective gesture, using few and raw materials, primarily wood (with a framework covered with rough wood planks) but also stone, with a block carved as a staircase and aspiring to recall a restrained monumentality in line with the intimacy of the space. From the outside, the archetypal pyramid shape reinterprets traditional elements of the area, especially the old huts that once characterized the region. The relationship with the tree, with the ground, the play of natural light that creates undirected illumination from the sky, and the context's enhancement are the drivers of the concept that returns a work closely connected with spirituality.
The jury appreciated the studio for its sensitivity to the relationship with the landscape, also expressed in the candidacy of another intervention, that for the Arginvecchio Pavilion.