Castello Borelli, with Piccaro Mountain behind it, covers a property of approximately 400,000 square meters that extends from the sea and the Aurelia state road to the top of the mountain.

The area plays an important role from a landscape point of view, both for its position in the territorial area, where the sea meets the mountain, and for the beauty of the botanical park, an excellent example of Mediterranean scrub in a good state of conservation. Furthermore, the park is crossed by a system of hiking trails connecting the coast and the naturalistic system of Poggio Grande.

The Urban Implementation Plan proposes the arrangement of the main paths that make up the road network of Mount Piccaro through some conservation and consolidation works, the elimination of invasive shrubs, which have grown in a disorderly manner over the years, and the recovery of the lateral gutters for the disposal of rainwater created by Eng. Borelli.

The castle recovery project introduces the collective and public dimension of the access space as an element of absolute innovation in the system. Based on the suggestions drawn from the reflection on the deep historical roots of the “Ligurian village”, the project proposes the creation of a real square as a new centrality for the destinations introduced by the project and a place to exalt their functional and aesthetic balance.

The project outlines the settlement footprint of the new building component in such a way as to achieve the following results:

• to preserve the monumental value of the Castle in its original layout

• to enclose the incremental component of the volumes within the limits of the walls with an organic interpenetration operation between the elements that characterize the monumental value of the complex and the new functions that update and revitalize its presence in the coastal fabric

• to maintain the landscape layout of the area unchanged, especially with regard to the naturalistic background

• to preserve a clear readability of ancient and modern in an architectural and formal juxtaposition of fundamental and mutual respect