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2025 | Professional

French Design Awards Silver Winner

Reciprocity: Rebirth of a Ruin

Entrant Company

Team work: Simin She and Ziqi Feng

Category

Architectural Design - Rebirth Project

Client's Name

Country / Region

United States

Rising from the hills of Italy鈥檚 Sabina region, the Abbey of Santa Maria in Piano carries nearly a thousand years of transformation in its stones. Founded in the 11th century as a Benedictine abbey, it later served as parish hub, hermitage, administrative asset, emergency cemetery, and, most recently, an abandoned site. Each role left a visible mark, forming the historic layers beneath our intervention, which embraces reciprocity鈥攁llowing past and present to remain distinct yet in dialogue.
We navigate between historic and contemporary, global and local, constructed and perished. Rather than letting the new overtake the old or merge into one, we keep their individuality and create reciprocal relationships.
Reciprocity is expressed across scales. Socially, interconnected spaces鈥攑erformance, exhibition, library, meditation, dining, and market鈥攅ncourage exchange of materials and information. Through the interweaving of programs, we seek to provide a platform that channels the history of the Ruin itself, local history, agricultural knowledge and products, as well as the global community of art, architecture and preservation.
Architecturally, our spaces step back from the ruin in massing and structure to maintain a reciprocal relationship between old and new. Primary structural columns and the elevator core stand outside the historic walls, with the building mass hung from heavy beams spanning between columns, allowing the volume to 鈥渇loat鈥 within. Self-illuminating polycarbonate roofs, sharing this floating language, juxtapose with stone walls as beacons of renewal. Translucent fabric, hung inside the building and outside the bell tower, serves as projection screens over the ruin鈥檚 brick surfaces.
At the human scale, reciprocity becomes experiential. Full-height pivot glass doors dissolve boundaries between interior and ruin, enabling direct contact with the historic fabric鈥攙isually, acoustically, and olfactorily. Three stepped interior floor layers鈥攇lazing, semi-reflective metal, and occupiable stone鈥攅xtend the floating language. The height difference enables the edge of the occupiable floor to become seating areas, like piers above water, offering spaces for reading and meditation.
Through reciprocity at every scale鈥攕ocial, architectural, and experiential鈥攖he abbey gains another identity: one that honors its history while reinvigorating the local community as a hub for exchange.



Credits

Simin She
Ziqi Feng
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