Revitalizing Existing Heritage: Memory, Transformation, and New Uses

Recovering the built heritage means recognizing existing buildings as an active resource, capable of generating new functions, urban quality, and continuity with the memory of places. For And Studio Architects, the recovery project does not coincide with mere preservation, but with a process of listening and transformation: the identity characteristics are preserved, incongruous parts are removed, and new elements are introduced that can bring life and contemporaneity.

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Palazzo San Jacopo, located in the historic center of Lucca, represents an emblematic example of this approach. The ancient workshop, which had long remained unused, is transformed into a contemporary residence through an intervention that enhances the double windows, balustrades, wrought iron balconies, arched openings, and historical color schemes. The new residential program thus integrates into a structure deeply connected to the city, preserving its identity and contributing to the regeneration of an area close to the Walls.

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In the Crastan Center, the recovery takes on an urban and multifunctional dimension. The former production building is repurposed to accommodate commercial spaces on the ground floor and office environments on the upper levels. The historic silhouette remains recognizable, while new volumes, glass surfaces, and a reflective metal wall clearly declare the contemporary nature of the intervention. The contrast between the existing structure and the additions becomes the tool through which the complex regains centrality, accessibility, and a new relationship with public space.

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The former Ceccanti Foundry area ultimately addresses the theme of industrial memory through a more radical transformation. The existing buildings are replaced by a residential complex that retains traces of the ancient foundry in its design: barrel roofs, sheds, large windows, double-height spaces, exposed brick, steel, and concrete. The history of the site is not reproduced but reinterpreted in new housing types that are capable of restoring quality and attractiveness to a degraded urban context.

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Three different interventions, a single vision: the existing heritage can become infrastructure for the future.

Recovering means keeping the memory alive without renouncing innovation, building architectures where the past and present do not oppose each other, but collaborate in defining new ways of inhabiting the city.