Santa Elisabetta House for senior citizens

The Villaggio Santa Elisabetta nursing home is located between Bressanone and Varna, in northern Italy. The facility aims to achieve sustainable development from five different and complementary issues: the verification of comfort and low impact on the built and natural environment – environmental sustainability –, the efficiency of mechanical and electrical systems – energy sustainability –, and social, managerial and economic sustainability.

The nursing home must be related to a residential context characterized by buildings of limited heights. The proposal, then, is structured as a neighbourhood of low-rise buildings that create courtyards between them.

The project under development responds to the guidelines of the architectural principles of the KDA (Kuratorium Deutsche Antershilfe), the German model for fifth-generation residences for elderly people, based on three fundamentals: life in privacy, life in community, and life in society.

The building qualifies for CasaClima Nature sustainability certification. Materials with a high percentage of recoverable or recyclable materials have been used for the project, such as wood for the interior dividing structure, linoleum flooring, wooden structure for the roof, ceramics and bricks, false ceilings, etc. In total, the project has 6,822 tonnes of recycled materials, 21% of the total construction site material.