Concept

The persistence of the Concordia on the rocks focused the world's attention on this little Mediterranean island; during the time between the disaster and the towing, hundreds of workers went to Giglio and interacted with the inhabitants and the territory.

To design the lighthouse, we started from the concept of “endurance” on the disaster site of a sign of what has been, of a memory, also physical, of this disaster. The Concordia layed down on the island’s rocks for 921 days but the trace of its stay lasts also after the removal.

This trace is realized in the lighthouse, exactly placed where the funnel of the cruise ship was, in particular, in the same position of the Costa Crociere logo’s “C”. It becomes also the archetypal shape for the genesis of the architecture. The name itself reminds the concept of persistence in a specific place, Endurance indeed.

Thinking about the concept of "memorial", we wanted to place the lighthouse directly in sea to emphasize his symbolic value. The visitor needs to pass through a jetty to access inside the architecture, so that during the approach, he’s already forced to be delve into the disaster location.

Endurance overturns the lighthouse’s traditional shape enlarging its mass with the increasing height; the base consists of a cylinder that flares upwards up to open itself in the shape of a “C”.

Energy

Regarding to the energetic issue of the lighthouse and its sustainability, during the design we are intended to focus on this aspect, which becomes a cornerstone for the whole architectural structure.

The best strategy is to get across to use the sea as a power generator. The wave’s power, in fact, is exploited by using a technology called Oscillating Water Column.

The internal structure of the lighthouse has become a hollow column directly connected to the sea, allowing the waves to come and go pushing and sucking air into the chamber through a Wells turbine and producing the necessary electricity to make self-sufficient lighthouse as it regards the lighting. In fact, the light of the lantern consist of LED panels which lighting up pulse, generating the typical lighthouse’s flicker with a considerable energy saving.

The lantern is then reinterpreted in a contemporary way and turned into a LED panels ring that recreates the generating circle of the "C" and defines the shape of the lighthouse at its top 24 meters above sea level.

Materials+functions

Endurance has been conceived as a lighthouse, but also as a memorial; for this reason, its rooms are open to the public. Specifically, the stairway, designed around the central chamber needed for the OWC technology, leads the guest to the top floors where a path guides them through the story of the disaster and at the same time commemorates the victims of the wreck through a series of interactive multimedia panels. A section of the last level is dedicated to the lighthouse keeper.

The coating of Endurance consists of ceramic elements on a steel substructure. The texturing follows a triangular-shaped mesh that grows in size in the measure of the increasing height of the lighthouse. In total there are 921 elements which recall the period of stay of the wreck on the rocks of the island.

The characteristics of resistance to bad weather and high salinity rate make the ceramic an excellent material for coating architecture placed in the sea.

The inner part of the lighthouse instead is configured as a continuous glass façade that follows the exterior mesh while allowing visitors to look out at the surrounding landscape through the central cut.