The Solar Park South International design competition awarded French firms OFF architecture , PR Architect and Samuel Nageotte for their entry called Verical Villages in Calabria, Italy. The competition played with the theme of a ‘Solar Highway’, re-using sections of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria highway soon to be decommissioned by the Italian Highways Authority. The redevelopment of the viaduct section of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria highway was carefully considered by the architects for each of its components in order to best integrate the project with the site’s potential. The fundamental question posed by the competition is that of the readaptation of such sites and the possibilities of atypical redevelopment socially, culturally and economically for the region.
OFF Architecture, PR Architect and Samuel Nageotte propose a reappropriation of the viaducts into residential, leisure and health centers that take on a typology that rises out of the context and the goal of environmentally conscious development. The project was heavily influenced by the primary observable characterists of the site. The Calabre region has one of the most stable climates in the world and is located in a variety of natural habitats among human interventions.
