In the metropolitan context of the city of Milan, the evident housing urgency, defines increasingly smaller spaces while having to respond to the welcoming concept of home.
The concept is constituted of an architecture made of a few actions. In a small domestic space, with a historical identity, characterized by old wooden coffers, a loft, traditional shutters, materials from industrial origin are grafted that define a relationship of continuity and contrast.
A device-furniture with different reflective faces is dropped within the historical spatialities of the house. It is a mechanism, gearing complex and simple at the same time, made of rhythms, shadows, thresholds. The project is identified in a micro architecture, a closet, the junction of a space, a domestic passpartout. The shape of this furniture is irregular to fit the pre-existing geometries.
The staircase becomes a physical and conceptual connection between the two levels of the house. It rests only on the main wooden beam, as if to place itself in the existing on tiptoe. The last step of this staircase does not exist or perhaps has been there all along, enhancing the existing slab.
The shape of the staircase is defined by an idea of movement to the intent of the space. A first part of the staircase, in line, defines the threshold of passage between outside and inside the furniture, and then merges and unrolls into a spiral solution that leads to the lower floor.
The materials are not treated, they show themselves in their natural raw material, following the philosophy of the unfinished. The plasterboard walls remain in their previous state before finishing, showing the color of the natural wall, without seeking masonry mimesis.
Dwell passepartout furniture is made entirely of aluminum, a material that is as light as it is unstable. Designed and built in carpentry by patenting how to construct a self-supporting aluminum furniture with a skin of hand-folded sheets. The draping of curtains, present in Milanese architectural culture, is crystallized in the design through aluminum folds.
The domestic mechanism is constituted of a series of multifunctional rigid box modules that, placed side by side, accommodate the necessary functions, table top, shoe rack, wardrobe, and door.
Dwell passepartout aims to be an experimentation with flexible furniture, modular furnishings, and industrial materials to delineate a current formal identity in continuity with a Milanese domestic culture. Text description by the architects.
