GDW Grumello di Wine
KEYWORDS. SONDRIO, CASTEL GRUMELLO, RE-EXPLORING OF HISTORY, MAN & NATURE, WALKING PROMENADE, VIEW.
CONCEPT BULLET POINTS
CONNECTION: castle accessible for everybody: local and visitors are visually and fiscally connected (and, of course, circulation made easily accessible for disabled people).
HISTORY: space used to recount Castle past.
WINE: zones for the celebration of local wine and products.
According to this main concept the process identify criteria to sculpture the castle pursuing on the main social aim.
The connection once again becomes either visual and fiscal as intended to create a connecting promenade extended from side to side of the castle and encountering a series of activities which bring attention to the castle as an excuse to show its historical relevance.
Castel Grumello nowadays is not considered as a strategic point for the area but it easy to reach anyway. It is setted on an hump 3.5 Km away from Sondrio’s railway station that means 50 minute by foot or 10 minutes by car. The bus stop is less than 10 minutes walking distance. The nearby advantage from the Sentiero Valtellina allowed the Castle to be easy discoverable and easy to recognize.
A bespoke bus stop would be advantageous so the proposal is to deal with STPS, the society who manage public transport in Sondrio, to insert a new station on the main entrance of the Castle. This would be a 0 cost intervention.
Car accessibility is easy but it presents a lack of parking nevertheless the intention is to not intervene in these sense; trying to promote slow mobility (sentiero valtellina) and public mobility.
People who has handicap are obviously welcomed and is decided to solve accessibility issue guaranteeing a secondary car access directly to the restaurant present in the east side of the castle.
The existing street has a gentle slope which is suitable for disable without car support indeed it has a maximun slope of 9% (10% is the max acceptable for renovation interventions). The level reached with this street is on the basement of the restaurant building thus we would place a platforms to reach the top level of the restaurant. This decision has been taken after a careful study of slopes which indicated that a continuous ramp from the entrance would have been technically difficult since the paths it’s not regular and pretty long. This solution revealed to be more expensive due to its bespoke characteristic rather than the simple ramp proposed.
Thinking about aesthetic aspects is definitely recognised the access from the restaurant as a better solution since is kept unalterated the path that lead to the castle and which is the first approach to the site.
As this entrance would appear difficult for the people who are coming by public transport a new entrance dedicated to disable people have been provided from the north side where now exist a secondary entrance with elevated slope.
This entrance would bring up with an elevator to the platform level.
Inside the castle the castle a continuous platform guarantees the accessibility for disable people. The platform which starts from the east castle and highlight all the castle experience is wooden made and is thought in order to don’t have slopes over 8% . To achieve this objective is required to overpass the dip in between barracks and west castle with a flat path consequently. The decision is to create a footbridge part in little elevation.
This part doesn’t present ruins according to our survey and documentation so some little pillars can be placed to sustain the intervention.