Haowen Bo

La Masseria del Vomero- Architectures to Cultivate a Monastic Landscape

Architecture - MArch

Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA)

Haowen.bo0809@outlook.com

Follow:

Curriculum Vitae (1.32 MB)

Three Buildings of "la Masseria del Vomero"

Project description

The Naples cityscape has undergone complex development, resulting in a densely populated yet permeable environment. With modern structures interspersed among historical relics, it forms a carrier for light, which is reflected, absorbed, or passes through gaps between buildings, ultimately illuminating the ground and generating new spatial qualities.

Louis Kahn once said, "A room without natural light is not a room." From a physics perspective, light can be reflected, refracted, and absorbed. When light, originally formless and abstract, encounters architecture, it takes on shape. It permeates space, interacting with various material surfaces to produce distinct states—sharp or soft—and simultaneously constructing corresponding shadow spaces. Thus, light becomes a medium through which people perceive spatial dynamics within buildings.

Castel Sant’Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino, on the slopes of Vomero, are two of Naples’ most visible landmarks. Their earthworks, walls, buttresses, and hanging gardens form part of a hillside which has been shaped by historic agricultural practices. As a landmark of Vomero, the Certosa di San Martino has also influenced the historical changes of Vomero. With the establishment of the monastery, Vomero gradually began to be inhabited, and the residents here cultivated the previously uninhabited areas into farmland. The name Vomero also originates from a farmhouse on the mountain, locally known as "Broccoli Hill," hinting at the ploughshare cutting furrows in the farmland.

Grounding Naples is a project that firstly immerses itself into the city's crevices to observe and feel the city's static and dynamic landscape with light, then jumps out of the small space and returns the space to the green, creating a series of experimental green buildings at the top of the Vomero hill, creating a sample of a community that combines urban agriculture with tourism and commerce, which can be projected to the whole Naples region to improve the environmental problems caused by urbanization. This sample can be projected onto the entire Naples region, alleviating the current crowded and chaotic conditions, allowing visitors to experience the beauty of Naples before overdevelopment.

Cross-Section of the Hotel Apartment

Cross-Section of the Winter Garden Restaurant

Cross-Section of the Office Building

'Sapore di Stagione'-[A Wintergarden Fine-Dining Restaurant]

Sapore di Stagione

-[A Wintergarden Fine-Dining Restaurant]

Castel Sant’Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino, on the slopes of Vomero, are two of Naples’ most visible landmarks. Their earthworks, walls, buttresses, and hanging gardens form part of a hillside which has been shaped by historic agricultural practices. The name Vomero is taken from a farmhouse that was located on the hill, and the hill is known locally as Broccoli Hill. It also alludes to the vomere, or ploughshare, the part of the plough which cuts furrows. The proposals for a new Charterhouse (Una Nuova Certosa) aim to re-establish a daily itinerary of care and cultivation for Broccoli Hill centred on five distinct buildings. Each building is positioned to maximize exposure (to the sun and to the city), creating spaces where the contrasts of light and shadow are heightened, where the visibility of the landscape is enhanced, and where extremes of heat and shade are brought into proximity.

This project extends some of the studioD's concepts, selecting the north slope of Vomero as the location and establishing a function-oriented plant-themed upscale restaurant. The proposal develops the surrounding green spaces of Castel Sant’Elmo and Certosa di San Martino, cultivating Italian local crops such as grapes, basil, broccoli, tomatoes, etc. These crops are managed, cultivated, and harvested by monks from the monastery. After a growth cycle concludes, the fruits are handpicked, packaged into crates, and then delivered to the restaurant's rooftop unloading area using drones. This vegetable planting, production, and transportation supply chain can be applied to the entire Naples area, using drones for delivery throughout the city.

'Sapore di Stagione'-[Footing]

'La Masseria del Vomero'-Accomodation[Hotel and Apartment]

La Masseria del Vomero

-Accomodation [Hotel and Apartment]

The hanging gardens of Vomero, or Broccoli Hill, bring together the orchards, fruit trees, flowers, and fountains of the former Certosa di San Martino monastery complex, and the small, informal fields of vegetables tended by local farmers and residents. Recalling the farmhouse (masseria) which gave Vomero its name, a connected network of buildings explores the potential for developing agritourism on this steep hillside to support efforts to cultivate and conserve existing structures on Vomero: the museum housed within the former monastery, Castel Sant’Elmo above, the hanging gardens, and the retaining walls which structure these gardens. It counterposes exclusive institutions with everyday activities and events, developing economic and cultural exchanges between visitors and residents. New pathways through and around the complex offer access to the lower terraces of the hanging gardens. Accommodation—apartments for workers and hotel rooms for guests—is incorporated into a dilapidated building on the edges of the former Monastery complex, preserving and developing the eastern facade of the existing building and providing space for those managing, working in, and visiting the facilities. Guests learn to grow and cook food in an adjacent restaurant, which serves fresh produce to tourists and caters for local events. Constructed around a winter garden, this restaurant is maintained by gardeners quartered in a separate building, constructed into the retaining walls which structure the terraces of Broccoli Hill. This Gardener’s Office provides space for five gardeners to work, rest, shower, change, and store equipment. A swimming pool at the lower level of the accommodation block connects into a network of water collection systems and cisterns serving the adjacent fields. Together, these projects—a space of dwelling, a space of dining, a space for tending a garden, and a space for washing—act as a new farmhouse (masseria) on Vomero.

The collected constructions in this new Masseria all respond to the presence of light, sun, and heat. On one of the most prominent sites in the city this site is exposed to harsh southern sun, necessary to feed the gardens but challenging for architecture in a changing climate. Materials are chosen based on their reflectivity, their thermal capacity and their ability to channel water (rain or condensation) into local water collection systems. The finishes employed play on levels of reflectance and various surface textures, creating a collective re-surfacing of the rock of Vomero, a contemporary re-facing of the hill in response to an evolving climate providing a new hanging garden of light, stone and water feeding into and working with architectures of la Masseria del Vomero.

Accomodation Exploded Axonometric

-Office Building [Gardeners]

The gardener's office is nestled within the terraced hillside on the south side of Vomero, providing workspace, rest areas, shelter from rain, changing facilities, and equipment storage for five employees. On the western side of the office building is a staircase leading to a lower-level terrace, open to the public. Visitors can traverse here to access the garden below or simply sit and enjoy Naples' breathtaking sunsets.