Piazza Mariano in Oristano, Italy, redesigned by Giulia de Appolonia, reconfigures a traffic-fragmented urban lot around an existing war memorial into a pedestrian civic space organized through stone paving, lawn, benches, trees, water, and calibrated lighting.
Piazza Mariano Technical Information
- ArchitectsGiulia de Appolonia
- LocationOristano, Italy
- Gross Area2,295 m2 | 24,703 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years2023 – 2024
- Photographs© Filippo Poli
The intervention focused on the recovery of the nature of the place, respecting the functional comforts that have consolidated over the years and giving a new reading to the war memorial through the reconfiguration of the space.
– Giulia de Appolonia
Reclaiming the Urban Lot as a Pedestrian Square
The redesign of Piazza Mariano begins with a simple urban correction: the closure of the road segment south of the war memorial to traffic. What had functioned as a residual island within a vehicular system is converted into a continuous pedestrian surface, allowing the site to operate as a square rather than as an object surrounded by circulation. This shift changes the monument from a traffic-bound marker into an element within a legible civic ground.
The intervention also reinforces a broader pedestrian sequence between Oristano’s historic center and the train station. Instead of treating the piazza as an isolated improvement, the project integrates it into the city’s daily movements. The square becomes both a pause and a threshold, accommodating passage while offering spaces for sitting, gathering, and informal occupation.
From the above, the triangular urban block is organized into longitudinal bands that clarify the relationships among movement, greenery, and monumentality. The basalt corridor follows the building fronts, the lawn occupies the southern portion, and the white paved field holds the memorial to the north. This diagrammatic clarity is valuable in a constrained site, where the geometry of surrounding roads could otherwise fragment the spatial reading.
Reframing the War Memorial
The existing war memorial remains the project’s spatial and symbolic anchor. Its limestone tempietto, with Corinthian columns, arched openings, inscriptions, and a suspended lantern, is not absorbed into a new formal composition but given a more deliberate setting. The pale stone paving around it establishes a civic field that allows the structure to be read from multiple directions without excessive scenographic framing.
Three long precast concrete benches define the northern paved area. Their low, monolithic profiles give scale to the open surface without producing enclosure. Positioned as edges rather than barriers, they establish a ceremonial perimeter while preserving visual access to the memorial and maintaining the continuity of pedestrian movement across the square.
The lighting strategy extends this reframing into the evening. Linear light at the base of the monument washes the limestone from below, while discreet floodlights address the four facades. The benches also incorporate recessed LED strips, producing a low horizontal glow that reinforces the geometry of the square. Rather than adding new symbolic elements, the project uses light to recalibrate the monument’s presence within the nocturnal city.
Material Contrast and Ground Composition
The ground plane is the primary architectural instrument of the intervention. Around the memorial, small white marble cubes form a luminous civic surface whose texture is both continuous and granular. The material gives the northern zone a degree of abstraction appropriate to the monument, while its stone character maintains a connection to regional construction traditions and the mineral palette of Sardinian public spaces.
Along the building fronts, the paving changes to dark basalt cubes. This darker corridor has a different urban role: it mediates between the square and the commercial edges, supporting slower pedestrian movement and more localized uses. Its chromatic weight also anchors the eastern side of the project, preventing the white paved field and lawn from reading as an undifferentiated open plane.
The most explicit transition occurs where white marble bands interlock with grass strips before opening into the southern lawn. This device avoids the abrupt separation of hardscape and landscape common in small urban squares. Instead, the paving dissolves gradually, establishing a visual and tactile negotiation between formal civic space and informal recreation. The pattern is graphic from above, but at ground level it works as a measured change in surface and use.
Landscape, Climate, and Everyday Occupation
The southern lawn introduces a climatic and social counterpoint to the paved memorial field. In a Mediterranean urban context, the provision of permeable green surface is not merely decorative; it reduces heat accumulation and creates a softer area for everyday occupation. The lawn allows the piazza to support less ceremonial uses, including rest, informal meetings, and the incidental presence of pedestrians moving through the city.
Two rows of young deciduous trees structure this green portion and frame views toward the monument. Their current scale leaves the square visibly open, but their alignment anticipates a future canopy that will provide shade, filter views from adjacent roads, and increase spatial enclosure along the pedestrian routes. The planting strategy therefore operates in time, with the full environmental performance of the design dependent on growth and maintenance.
A flush fountain is integrated into the ground near the monument, reinforcing the project’s emphasis on adaptable surfaces. When inactive, it reads as part of the paving; when active, it introduces sound, reflection, and play without requiring a freestanding object. This restrained treatment of water is consistent with the broader approach: urban elements are embedded into the ground plane so the square can shift between movement, gathering, commemoration, and daily public use.
About Giulia de Appolonia
Giulia de Appolonia is an Italian architect working at the intersection of architecture and urban regeneration, with a practice grounded in careful, contextually attentive interventions in historic centers.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: Municipality of Oristano
- Construction company: CISAF srl
- Collaborators: Arch. Piero Pivetta, Arch. Valeria Salcone and Arch. Ana-Maria Aionesei
- Infrastructures: Ing. Moreno Cossu, CSP
- Geology: Laura Mascia
- Site supervision and CSE: Arch. Giulia de Appolonia and Ing. Moreno Cossu
- Photography: Filippo Poli
- Precast concrete benches: Madeddu Concrete Design
- Other contributors: Edilizia Loi di Loi Fabrizio srl, floors
- Fountain: Officina Acquatica spa
- Strip LED: Bipaled srl
