White, punctuated by blue accents. The Quinto Orazio Flacco school in Castellaneta, in the province of Taranto, seems to dissolve into the sky. The school has been given a new lease of life through a refurbishment by Laterza-based architectural practice Domenico Perrone & P.
“A building dating from the late 1980s, with a T-shaped plan, it required seismic upgrades and improvements to its energy performance,” explains architect Margherita Miccoli. “The building envelope had poor thermal insulation and inefficient windows, while heating was provided by a conventional gas boiler and cast-iron radiators. These conditions resulted in high energy consumption and inadequate comfort. Our aim was to retain the building’s existing footprint and volume while improving safety, accessibility and efficiency, and to provide a more comfortable learning environment, with better air quality and thermal comfort, as well as greater control over natural light.”
At the heart of the project is the new ventilated façade. “We conceived it as a new climate-responsive ‘skin’ for the building,” continues Miccoli. “The system combines insulation panels, a supporting metal subframe and an outer porcelain cladding in a single dry-assembled build-up. Continuous insulation reduces thermal bridging and improves comfort throughout the school.” In southern Italy, the air cavity between the insulation and the cladding plays a strategic role through the stack effect: “Convective airflow helps dissipate some of the heat that builds up in summer, while in winter the continuous insulation limits heat loss. The ceramic cladding also provides protection against solar radiation, driving rain and temperature fluctuations. Dry assembly allows the system to be dismantled, reducing maintenance time and costs.”
Cerdisa’s EC1/22 porcelain tiles, in a 60 × 120 cm size, were chosen for the cladding. “These tiles enabled us to combine precision in construction, stability, weather resistance, ease of cleaning and expressive quality. We chose a rectangular format to reduce visual fragmentation.”
The Angel white shade and the blue accents of the porcelain cladding create a dialogue with the sky and the surrounding landscape. “They bring unity to a building made up of different volumes, levels and elevations. The white captures changing light and gives the school’s volumes a sense of lightness; the blue introduces depth and rhythm, highlighting the succession of solid surfaces, openings and recesses.”
The refurbishment also redefines the school’s identity: “We did not want to erase the original structure. The façade is not a mask applied to the existing building, but a new ordering system that makes its different sections, openings, entrances and heights legible. The architectural envelope becomes the ‘face’ of the institution.”
Today’s schools must address the challenges of climate change: “We focused on the wellbeing of teachers and students. The ventilated façade with continuous insulation, roof insulation, new aluminium-framed windows with low-emissivity triple glazing and adjustable solar shading limit heat loss in winter and reduce summer overheating, controlling solar gain while retaining natural light. The project is completed by a heat pump, heating, cooling and ventilation systems with heat recovery, LED lighting controlled by occupancy sensors, and a photovoltaic system rated at approximately 20 kWp, supplemented by battery storage to increase on-site consumption of the electricity generated.”
For the architects, the message is clear: “The future of our cities also depends on our ability to recognise school buildings as a resource to be transformed, rather than a lesser legacy to be replaced. Refurbishing these buildings means bringing together safety, sustainability and architectural quality, restoring their active role in community life.”
