Design Competition. Winning project (first place)
This project aims to restore the former Convento dei Carmelitani Scalzi (Teresiani), previously the Caserma Cimmarrusti, located in the heart of the city of Lecce, and convert it into student housing. The objective is to create a public work of significant architectural quality, designed to foster the full right to study and citizenship for the university students who will reside there. The building in question dates to the early 17th century and occupies an entire block in the historic center of the city. After the dissolution of religious orders in 1807, the property was used as a Gendarmerie barracks starting in 1813, and later as a Carabinieri barracks until 1970. When the Carabinieri moved elsewhere, the complex was briefly used as a school and eventually decommissioned. The project, which resulted from a two-stage architectural competition focuses on the architectural restoration of the building, abandoned for over twenty years, and the adaptive reuse of its interior spaces to house a fully equipped university residence. The proposal includes 80 housing units, consisting of 41 rooms, 10 of which are mini-apartments, and 3 accessible units (2 single rooms and 1 double room).