WELCOME CASINO

The WELCOME CASINO studio explored the adaptive reuse of the former Casino Campione d’Italia, designed by Mario Botta, into a refugee social integration center. Once the economic engine of the enclave town of Campione d’Italia, the monumental structure had become, after its first bankruptcy, a symbol of mono-economic dependency and geopolitical exceptionality. The studio proposed its transformation into a refugee integration center / asylum, generating a strong civic program for the town. It examined how a building conceived for gambling and economic extraction could be converted into an architecture of care, hospitality, and shared civic life, informed by the principles and critical questions of humanitarian design.

Students were challenged to design a transformation that avoided a hermetic asylum object and instead proposed a porous civic infrastructure. The project had to enable interaction between refugees and local inhabitants, transforming an introverted monument into an accessible and inclusive environment. Interventions were expected to operate with maximum effect and minimum means, privileging selective removal, on-site material reuse, temporary and adaptable systems, and creative reinterpretation rather than nostalgic imitation or total replacement.

This studio critically examined how a structure defined by mono-functionality could be reimagined as a plural public program serving both newcomers and residents. Through precise strategies of reuse, it investigated whether adaptive transformation, grounded in humanitarian design, could produce dignified, specific, and socially engaged spaces capable of continuous evolution.