The architectural design is situated along a major shopping street in Ragusa, which is why, right from the very first pencil sketches, the premises were conceived as a space open to the city. Indeed, *Il Pastificio* catches the eye of passers-by through its two large windows and the touch of greenery provided by the large outdoor planter. Once inside, you almost feel as though you are inside an old-fashioned pasta-making machine – the sort you might have seen at your grandmother’s house, so to speak – and can watch the dough being extruded as it descends like a light, soft sheet from the ceiling. This effect is achieved by arranging numerous wooden slats of varying profiles, which together form a striking three-dimensional surface.
The slats are fixed horizontally to the ceiling, before bending and running vertically down the wall behind the counter; this structure serves both as a light fitting and as a display unit, with sauces, gravies, spices and various other products arranged between the slats. This motif is repeated on the opposite wall to form the support for a large, well-lit and inviting shelf, where customers can linger and savour the traditional flavours on offer. The actual production area of the ‘pasta workshop’ is open to customers via a glass partition, allowing them to watch the production process whilst at the same time ensuring the necessary functional separation within the space. Here, in fact, you can see expert hands at work, rolling out and shaping the pasta shapes that commonly accompany the lunches served at VINDIGNI.
Against the backdrop of the workshop and on the side wall of the shop counter, the colour variations typical of pasta are echoed through a meticulously designed geometric and textural pattern of cement tiles. Various lighting strategies are employed across the different areas of the pasta factory, which nevertheless maintains a unified lighting system, carefully calibrated and with a strong architectural impact: whilst the retail area benefits from dramatic lighting that ‘gushes’ from the wooden slats (as well as from the ‘display’ lighting integrated into the glazed section of the counter), the large shelf is enhanced by more focused lighting from a number of pendant lights; the workshop is fitted with a rectangular light strip, suspended midway between the floor and the ceiling; all the spaces are seamlessly integrated by grazing light from plasterboard recesses designed to create a smooth transition between the walls and the ceiling.