Tamassociati

The construction of the new parish complex in the Varignano district has been completed in Viareggio, It replaces a pre-existing building no longer suitable or adequate for pastoral and celebratory needs and included for these reasons in the national architecture competition called “Diocesan Paths”, promoted by the CEI to define new models of religious buildings, capable of making the values of the Gospel message more clearly relevant, to be combined with an increasingly lively attention to environmental and social sustainability.

The new complex contains spaces for various activities, both liturgical and social, with areas also dedicated to meetings of the various neighbourhood associations.
In addition to the large liturgical space accommodating over 400 worshippers, the rectory and catechism rooms, there are spaces for study, play and community-support activities.
It is a complex of some 1700 square metres of usable surface, with green areas and parvis with the new bell tower.

With its addition of new spaces and services, the Varignano project represents a sign of renewal for the whole neighborhood, an example of open participation in the city, the result of active collaboration between social and institutional stakeholders. It has been extended to improve usability, facilitys and livability for the whole community involved. A high goal for this building, designed for the community but above all to start a path of existential regeneration that seeks to combine values of faith and of civil and social commitment.

The ambitious program of the competition was titled "Mission Varignano" as the initial video that set out the main themes to be addressed in the construction for the attention of the designers: the memory to be preserved, the restrained search for the noble simplicity of liturgical and pastoral beauty, the complexity to be healed on the urban and landscape level.
The Studio TAM Associati, winners of the competition, answered these questions as follows:
"The new church of the Resurrection does not seek to erase the identity of the current building or to forget a memory so stratified and shared in the neighbourhood. Rather, it seeks to understand the reasons and the strength that generated that project, and return them to the community in a new building located in an appropriate, beautiful and welcoming context, which maintains the meaning and value of that human and Christian experience, renewing its great originality. We therefore think that the new church should be reborn (resurrected) from its roots, made of ‘courage’ and ‘simplicity’. For this reason, all the design choices are based on a conceptual and constructive restraint, which avoids any ‘monumental’ approach (unsuited to the place and its history) and rather emphasises the characters of ‘solidarity’ and ‘hospitality’ that have always been typical of the life of this parish and the whole Varignano district."

The further theme proposed, sustainability, has been achieved with the creation of a building that is highly efficient in energy saving and maintenance. Built out of X-lam wooden panels, it is equipped with simple technologies to replace and treat primary air, powered by a 27 kW photovoltaic field installed on the roof. The system, hidden from view, with dynamic control of temperature and humidity, guarantees the best conditions of environmental comfort in the body of the church and the best conservation of the building envelope over time. This attention was required not only by the client and the CEI, but necessary in an integral ecology perspective pursued in every project.