The awards ceremony for the best project proposals of the competition was held at the Regional Council Building in L’Aquila “New business ideas from the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park”the last event of the Park’s centenary celebration.
Among the awarded projects there is also that of renovation of the stazzo refuge on Monte Tranquillo, on the border between Lazio and Abruzzo. The project, born from the idea of five guys who make up the collective Casaims to put the historical structure back into operation, trying to enhance the internal areas of the Abruzzo Apennines through slow and sustainable tourism.
The name of the collective for the resilience and rebirth of internal areas, Cas, is the acronym of “Chi Apre Serra”, the phrase that is engraved at the entrance to the refuges of Abruzzo and which is a motto that invites anyone who enters to leave everything as it was found, or to improve it.
The Cas collective makes this principle its own, committing itself toleave the world better than he found it, starting from a refugeand is fueled by its constituents’ passion for the mountains and the traditions of the territory.
“With the proposal for the reuse project of the mountain refuge of the Monte Tranquillo stazzo we would like attention to be paid to how it represents our ties with the territory and with traditions – say the members of the collective – and that the fact that the state in which many of the Park’s mountain structures are currently in does not enhance their importance and does not represent a worthy calling card of the places we live in every day”.
Thus, driven by the common passions that “bind them inextricably to the territory” and strengthened by the experience “in various mountain refuges throughout Italy”, they decided to put a mountain hut back on its feet.
“The proposed intervention, divided into three steps, is aimed at preserve the morphology and general characteristics of the building – they explain -. We start from restoration of basic functionsuntil reaching, compatibly with the regulatory instruments in force and respect for the mountains, ad a refuge that can guarantee a preferential foothold for scholars, photographers and nature lovers; a mountain hub from which to have a preferential point of view on woods, animals and everything that surrounds it”.
One aspect of the project on which particular attention was paid is that of energy consumption: “We designed the project with the aim of keeping any type of expenditure to a minimum, this was possible by adopting solutions that guaranteed the tightness of the casing itself. With minimal energy inputs, such as photovoltaic, internal fireplace and possibly micro-eolian systems, it will be possible to obtain comfort and well-being that cannot be achieved at present”.
For the first year, the goal is to make the refuge usable again as an emergency bivouacin order to bring it back to its initial purpose, given the strategic position at a crossroads of various paths (including pilgrimage ones).
“We think that the reuse of the building in an innovative and functional way in the long term will allow us to renew the image of the territory, through the promotion of a series of activities that are currently not possible in an organized way” say the members of the Cas “Enhancing the natural heritage, through the conscious dissemination and attraction of slow and sustainable tourism, will be our care and objective”.
