Where history meets innovation
In Turin (a city where every street breathes history) space is a luxury. The baroque facades, narrow courtyards, and centuries-old schools form a dense urban tapestry that leaves little room for expansion.
So when Collegio San Giuseppe, one of the city’s oldest and most respected schools, wanted to give its students more space to move, they looked not to the past, but to the sky.
The result: a rooftop sports pitch that floats above the historic rooftops of Turin, a place where children now run, laugh, and play against the backdrop of the Alps. It’s small, it’s elevated, and it’s revolutionary in its simplicity.
The challenge of the modern city
Turin, like many European cities, faces a dilemma. How do you protect heritage while creating space for health and vitality? How do you give the next generation room to grow in places built hundreds of years ago?
For the educators and engineers at San Giuseppe College, the answer was architectural, social, and symbolic all at once: use what you already have.
The school’s existing roof offered the perfect platform, literally to reinvent how students experience sport and learning. By transforming an unused, flat rooftop into a safe, open, and inspiring space, they created something new without altering the building’s historic integrity.
“In the heart of Turin, where space is history, we built a playground for the future.”
The design: light, safe, and invisible
From street level, you wouldn’t even know the field exists. The designers intentionally kept the structure low and discreet, ensuring that the addition blends seamlessly into Turin’s skyline.
The 600-square-metre rooftop is surfaced with high-quality artificial turf over a shock-absorbing layer. Around the perimeter, transparent stainless-steel mesh fencing ensures complete safety without blocking sunlight or views.
The fencing system, similar to the Jakob Webnet used in rooftop projects in New York, creates a sense of openness, while integrated lighting allows the pitch to be used even after sunset. The netting also helps reduce sound reflection, a crucial factor in densely populated neighborhoods.
The result is a space that feels free yet contained, airy, green, and secure above the city’s terracotta rooftops.
Movement as part of education
At San Giuseppe, sport isn’t treated as a break from learning, it’s part of it. The rooftop pitch gives students a daily dose of movement and collaboration in a city where outdoor space is rare.
During the day, physical education classes take over the field; in the afternoons, it becomes a social arena for spontaneous play. Teachers report that students return to class more focused and energized, proof that movement fuels not just bodies, but minds.
The project’s success has even inspired other schools in Turin to explore their own rooftops as potential play areas.
“On this rooftop, students learn that space is never the limit, only imagination is.”
Respecting heritage, shaping the future
Turin’s charm lies in its architectural restraint a city that values elegance over excess. That’s why the rooftop pitch is so powerful: it doesn’t try to stand out; it fits in.
Instead of disrupting the historical landscape, it adds a new, invisible layer of life. It’s modern urbanism at its best, innovation through respect.
The lightweight construction minimizes structural load, and the green surface contributes to heat reduction and insulation. In a time of rising urban temperatures, the pitch also serves as a small but meaningful gesture toward sustainability.
This is not just about sport; it’s about showing how heritage buildings can stay alive and relevant through thoughtful design.
A view that inspires
For the students, stepping onto the rooftop feels like stepping into another world. They see the domes and spires of Turin all around them, and beyond that, the snow-capped Alps in the distance.
It’s a space where imagination expands as much as their lungs. Between lessons in literature and science, they learn something just as valuable, that even in old cities, you can still create something new.
A model for European cities
San Giuseppe’s rooftop playground represents a broader shift in how European cities think about movement and education. As schools face shrinking footprints and rising student numbers, rooftops are becoming an untapped frontier, safe, accessible, and full of potential.
From Edinburgh to Turin, these elevated spaces are reshaping what schools can be:
- Healthier: encouraging daily physical activity.
- Smarter: integrating design with education.
- Greener: reusing existing structures instead of expanding outward.
- More joyful: proving that play can coexist with tradition.
It’s a reminder that innovation isn’t always about starting over — sometimes, it’s about looking up.
The rooftop pitch at San Giuseppe College may be small in size, but its impact reaches far beyond its boundaries. It redefines what’s possible in heritage cities, showing that vitality, safety, and design can thrive even within the tightest constraints.
High above Turin, between the bells of the old churches and the hum of the modern city, children run freely, the sound of the future echoing through the past.