In future, female prisoners will be able to see their loved ones again in the shelter of the wooden house. Renzo Piano’s project on the outskirts of Rome impresses with its clear lines and striking loggia.
In future, female prisoners will be able to see their loved ones again in the shelter of the wooden house. Renzo Piano’s project on the outskirts of Rome impresses with its clear lines and striking loggia.
28 square meters for living, cooking and eating
Hidden between trees and a wall, there it is, the “Ma.Ma. Modulo per l’Affettività e la Maternità”, which translates as “Module for maternal affection”. Renzo Piano’s building stands on the site of a prison on the north-eastern outskirts of Rome.
The Rebibbia women’s prison currently has around 320 inmates. The prison grounds are separated from the neighboring buildings by an 800-meter-long wall. Behind it, the women lead a life of isolation. Due to the lack of facilities for women in the region, many of them serve their sentences far away from their usual surroundings. They are therefore many kilometers away from their homes. As a result, they rarely see their families, often lose touch and hardly play a role in the family structure. The terracotta-colored wooden house, a prototype of the Ministry of Justice, is intended to change this in future: Here, under the shelter of the pitched roof, a place is to be created where female prisoners – mothers, aunts, daughters and sisters – can meet with their relatives in an intimate atmosphere, talk, be together, cook. The aim is not to create an anonymous, supervised meeting place, but a space that replicates the dimensions of a home and promotes undisturbed togetherness.
Photos: Alessandro Lana@G124
For this reason, RPBW took its cue from the archetypal residential house and brings together all the rooms of the building under a gabled roof. Its iconic shape references traditional images of home. The only interior space is accessed via a cut-out loggia, a sheltered entrance area. The 28 square meter living space combines the functions of living, cooking and eating in one volume.
Orange-red on the outside, wooden on the inside: the house’s color scheme is both attractive and creates a sense of identity. This brings color and life into the dreary everyday life of the prison inmates. The interior of the building is in turn strongly characterized by wood as a material. The load-bearing elements, walls, ceilings and furniture are all made of wood. The organic wood grain gives the House of Encounter a warm atmosphere. The prefabricated wooden elements were manufactured in the prison’s carpentry workshop. The master carpenter then assembled the house together with women in prison.
In 2013, Renzo Piano, the initiator of the project, was appointed senator for life by the Italian president. Since then, the architect has used the office for his favorite projects. Piano is fascinated by the outskirts of Italian cities. He has set himself the task of upgrading and transforming them through selective interventions. This also happens in a figurative sense with the Ma.Ma. project, where women living on the margins of society are carefully reintegrated.
After an accident in Genoa, Pritzker Prize winner Renzo Piano rebuilt a 1000-metre-long bridge in his home town. You can see the result here.
