In the heart of a territory suspended between thermal heritage and everyday urban life, Piazza Mercato becomes a ground between past and future, a place asking to be stitched back together, reimagined, reinhabited.
The new canopy transforms that emptiness into a gesture of closeness. At the center of this transformation are the inhabitants and visitors, children and elders, those who come for the market and those seeking a moment of pause. They are welcomed by a soft, sheltering form, a hill-like roof that invites people to climb, linger, meet. Function expands: no longer just a space of passage but the community’s daily stage, where events, markets, and quiet interludes coexist with ease. Atmosphere becomes the true material of the project. Light filters beneath the great concrete sail, greenery rises to meet the sky, smooth and continuous surfaces cultivate a sense of calm and protection.
Here, material is anything but cold: it becomes landscape, gesture, breath. A gentle landmark that does not impose itself but embraces, a place that shifts its rhythm with those who cross it, a new urban horizon where the simple pleasure of being together can be rediscovered.

Multipurpose covered plaza in Piazza Mercato, Montegrotto Terme.

Location: Montegrotto Terme, Padua, Italy.
Client: Municipality of Montegrotto Terme.
Area: 600 sqm
Budget: € 2.000.000
Project development: 2025
Architecture: AACM
Images: AACM
Team: Tommaso Nicoli