Rebuilding of an ancient castle including a base-isolated museum hall

A design hypothesis to rebuild the main wing of the medieval castle of Prampero, devastated by a violent earthquake in Friuli in 1976, is presented in this paper. The intervention suggests that the building be used as a museum to exhibit the artistic heritage of the owners. This new destination prompted some architectural rearrangements of the interiors of the building as compared to its original configuration, while preserving the global volume and the interstory heights, as well as the outer appearance of the castle, including its façades, the roof and all finishes. The structural design includes some updated traditional solutions for the masonry walls, the wooden floors and the roof. At the same time, a non-conventional solution is adopted for the floor accommodating the main exhibition hall, consisting in the incorporation of a base isolation seismic protection system. Details of the design analyses carried out, with special regard to the numerical enquiry developed on the base-isolated floor, are provided in this paper. Selected drawings of the technical solutions adopted, are also presented.