Valfabbrica is an ancient village of medieval origin located between Assisi and Gubbio, in Umbria, a central region of Italy. Just outside the historic centre, the expansion of the cemetery planned by the client was the opportunity to create an artefact capable of being visible from the new high-traffic road, which runs not far away along the countryside, and to equip it with a sacred chapel capable of activating a strong physical and visual relationship with the landscape of the Umbrian countryside.
The project system closes towards the road and opens towards the interior of the existing complex, mediating the tombs with a loggia punctuated by large diameter columns, so as to make them perceived as a spatial device capable of functioning as a threshold that defines the sacredness of space.
At the center of the system is a space of relationship between the outside and the inside, a sort of chapel of the sacred landscape where you can pause, meditate and become aware of the archaic values of nature.
Inside this chapel, the centrality of the place is defined by the presence of a committed cross which with its delicate presence manages to become a sign of light and shadows, crossed by the gaze of visitors.
On the outside, a brick skin in the same color as the stones of the nearby church of the "Badia" which is what remains of the ancient monastery of S. Maria in "Vallis Fabrica", one of the oldest and most important monasteries in Umbria founded by Benedictines in the Carolingian era, which will be implemented with the second phase of expansion of the cemetery.
In these spatialities the role of natural light is central, in the tombs a linear sign on the ceiling allows the light to penetrate and draw changing shapes which are consolidated into a single sign at midday and in its fullest form on the day of the summer solstice. In the chapel of the sacred landscape the light penetrates from the outside through the large opening that frames the landscape, then crossing the large cross which will project its ever-changing shadow into the space of the chapel.
Natural light that becomes space and symbol, metaphor of the relationship with the divine.