The prefabrication technique is also used in restoration of the historic volumes, using Xlam elements for the structure, roof and partition walls, combined with glulam portals. Traditionally preferred for its durability, larch is the principal variety of wood used in the planks, internal and external buffer walls, door and window frames and systems controlling exposure to the sun, as well as the flooring and furnishings. Like an industrial product, the project breaks down the new volume and portions of the historic volumes into prefabricated wooden components, built elsewhere using numerical control machines and installed rapidly using dry assembly techniques. Use of wood as the unifying characteristic of the project, with its peculiarities of warmth, naturalness, vitality and reaction to the effects of time, identifies the architecture as a natural extension of the human being. At the same time, the historic buildings and service constructions forming the rest of the built curtain have been restored to contain farm holiday lodgings, meeting-places for the social farm, workshops for processing the farm’s produce and a retail space for public sale of the farm’s produce. To do this, the architects demolished the volumes that closed off the southern end of the courtyard and replaced them with a single element containing the new residential units, excavating an underground level to provide parking for the inhabitants. Traverso and Vighy have completed the existing residential building, bringing new life to the spaces and opening them up for the functional relationships the client required: cultural and educational initiatives promoting appreciation of the forest landscape, social farming with the involvement of young people with Down’s syndrome, partnerships with local social cooperatives, processing and sale of the farm’s produce, homes, and hospitality facilities for farm holiday guests. The idea of preserving ties with the local landscape and natural history was an essential feature of the project right from the start, reflected in the architectural plans.

The land is used for organic farming on a vast trace of land planted with local tree species typical of the Po Valley, such as oak, hornbeam, elm and maple. Located on the outskirts of Vicenza, 3 km from the city centre, Corte Bertesina is a traditional 19th century rural building of the Veneto region, built around a courtyard on the northeast edge of a 17-hectare estate. Dry assembly contributes to the symbolic “lightness” of the building, which ideally, or in the future, could be taken apart to recycle its parts. In terms of process, the key has been collaboration with networks of local enterprises, not only industries but craftspeople, in which components made using numerical control machines with are put together by hand. Corte Bertesina is an expression of this construction method, both in the newly built part and in the renovated historic building. The concept of lightness in architecture, described as minimal transformation of the land we build on, has in recent years taken the form of a specific strategy for use of prefabricated timber constructions allowing buildings to be designed and built in parts. This awareness works two ways: minimising impact on the natural landscape and absorbing the potential for energy, views, and enjoyment of the environment to ensure human wellbeing. Much more that a perfectly successful form, Corte Bertesina is a story of partnership between the ideological and productive organisations that built it together.įounded in Vicenza in 1996, Giovanni Traverso and Paola Vighy’s studio is known for its specific focus on two key aspects of design: experimental use of light, both in architecture and in products, and a focus on caring for the natural environment. The judges particularly appreciated the process, in addition to the project, resulting in creation of a work that is accepted by the community. As the judges explain in their motivation, “A rural courtyard is regenerated for users with special needs and for a new form of open hospitality in which restoration, new dry construction and the landscape blend together to form a unicum”. The prize-winners at the first Rigenera Festival held recently in Reggio Emilia include Traverso-Vighy’s Corte Bertesina.

Traverso tree service