Porte Aperte
Competition proposal, finalist with honourable mention, 2021


Costantino Nivola (1911 – 1988) was a Sardinian sculptor from Orani, a small, hillside town in the heart of the Barbara region in Sardinia. The artist, whose modernist sculptural work reached great acclaim internationally from the mid 20th century, spent most of his life in the United States where many of his public sculptures remain in place.

The Nivola Museum was built as a tribute to the artist in his hometown. The museum centralises much of the artists’ oeuvre, while offering the space for periodical temporary exhibitions by contemporary visiting artists and other local cultural events.  

In 2021 the Nivola Museum launched a competition inviting proposals for ‘eco-hotel’ facilities within the wider grounds of the museum site. The brief was established partially as an attempt to grapple with the difficulties surrounding ‘take-away tourism’, a critical issue for small villages and minor museums in less touristic regions in Sardinia.

The competition offered us the opportunity consider what it could mean for daytime and residential visitors to inhabit the grounds of the Nivola Museum. Porte Aperte is our interpretation of the brief.

A project produced in collaboration with Quinn Giroux and Silvia Diaz.

Design, research