School Closure Delayed as Unsafe Building Requires New Safety Measures
Longer summer holidays for the children of the elementary school in the main town. The reopening scheduled for the school has been canceled due to the building on via Marra being unfit for use, following the incomplete renovation works. These works have been ongoing since June by the company Spinaroli of Valeggio and have been delayed beyond the planned timeline due to a series of unforeseen significant inconveniences.
During the operational phase, it became evident that the building suffers not only from age but also from being constructed with a certain level of economy, resulting in several structural deficiencies. The reality is that Comune (Municipality) and the construction company found themselves facing situations that were certainly not anticipated during the planning phase.
For example, the ceiling in the dining hall and chapel area fell, fortunately during the renovation works, but one can only imagine the consequences if such an incident had occurred in the functioning school. “It was enough to move some beams of the ceiling,” states Emanuele Veronesi, the councilor responsible for schools, “to realize how precarious the entire structure was.”
Relocation and new interventions
At this point, it has become essential to review the entire intervention plan and carry out new consolidation works to ensure maximum safety of the structure. This explains the postponement of the reopening, as well as the urgent need to establish a temporary site, which has been chosen to be the ex-school building on viale Roma.
However, this complex building currently hosts the temporary station of the Carabinieri until the end of September. “As soon as it becomes available,” says Veronesi, “we will transfer not only classrooms, the dining hall, and the kitchen, but also the quarters for the nuns.”
The entire move will take no more than 10 days, with the opening of the temporary location scheduled for October 9. The school will then return to the renovated building by the end of the year. The building, which was constructed in the early 1960s, had previously sufficed until just a few years ago.
New design and expansion
The new educational and administrative needs of the structure required larger, more suitable spaces for group activities. Therefore, a project was initiated, designed by architect Gisella Lanciaprima, to include more space for dining, psychomotor activities, and rest for the children.
Spaces were optimized by making better use of existing areas and by expanding the building into the internal courtyard, creating open, multi-purpose, and flexible structures that can be easily adapted for different uses.