Dead End

Dead End was created to explore how a historic fortress can become more than a preserved ruin. Located around Capo d’Orso Castle in Sardinia, the project responds to an island shaped by nature, culture, movement, and conflict. Sardinia has always been a meeting point in the Mediterranean, but its strategic location also made it a place of defense and struggle. Capo d’Orso Castle carries this memory. Once built to protect local communities, it now stands as a trace of identity, resilience, and history. The project reinterprets the castle area as a multifunctional museum. Its main concept comes from the idea of the dead end. Instead of seeing a dead-end path as a limit, the design uses it as a moment of pause, discovery, and reflection. Through paths, terraces, exhibition spaces, accommodation, library, restaurant, amphitheater, and viewing points, the project guides visitors through the landscape step by step. Each route creates a different encounter with the site, until the visitor reaches a symbolic dead end where the journey turns inward. At its core, Dead End transforms a defensive landscape into an experience of memory. It connects history, movement, and place, allowing visitors to feel the past while being present in the landscape.