CAPO SAN MARTINO

The aim of the project is the regeneration of the Capo San Martino promontory, returning the site to the community through a dialogue between landscape, history, and architecture. Overlooking Lake Ceresio, the site, shaped by a post-glacial landslide around 15,000 years ago, has played various roles: between the 15th and 18th centuries it was the Forca di San Martino, later the site of a lime kiln that altered the morphology of the rocky spur, creating the current vertical cliff. The villa uphill was subsequently transformed into a restaurant and entertainment venue, until the promontory fell into abandonment.

The project interprets this history as an opportunity for sustainable regeneration, identifying the hospitality function as a way to reactivate the site. The form of the intervention follows the footprint of the spur, translating into sinuous, soft geometries inspired by the shoreline, the landscape, and historical pathways. A central role is assigned to the recovery of industrial memory: the remains of the old kiln foundations, buried in the 1980s by the existing lakeside building, are brought back to light and integrated into the new landscape and architectural system. The project is thus both a consequence and a formal solution to the continuous human impact on the site.

The project is organized as a stepped volume. From the level of the future bike path, designed to use the abandoned 19th-century railway tunnel, which cuts through the promontor, pedestrian paths connect the lakefront to the historic villa. Two main green areas structure the site: a lakeside park that reactivates the shores and highlights the remains of the historic kilns, and a new linear park atop the new hotel building, allowing visitors to circumnavigate the promontory via a new hiking route that connects to the new cycle-pedestrian path.

The historic villa, freed from 20th-century additions, houses the reception, lounge, suites, and a restaurant with a conference center. The new hotel volume on the northern slope accommodates most of the rooms, with integrated green terraces that harmonize the building with the landscape.

Capo San Martino thus takes shape as an open and permeable system: a new inhabited landscape where pathways, architecture, and nature interact, giving the promontory an active and recognizable identity on Lake Ceresio.