Refurbishment and extension of a Villa

Refurbishment and extension of a Villa | Piedmont, Italy | 2018
[GRILLO VASIU]

Located on the edge of the urban fabric and open towards the vast rice and agricultural fields, the 1910 villa is the last architectural object that connects the bourgeois world with the hard context of its countryside. The tough expression of the flatland, organised by regular fields and plantations, reflects the domesticated, man-made, structured nature.

This is the context of the existing villa and the conditions in which our small project had to react. Contained between walls, the plot, with its elongated proportions, offers possibilities of outdoor space all around the building; this intrinsic quality encouraged our desire of creating a complete universe between the boundary limits, a detached world that would make the house live from his outside space and viceversa.

The main strategy for the renovation of the existing object was reorganising the ground level of the entire area while leaving the first floor of the house essentially unchanged. The core of our intervention was the veranda, as an extension of the living space, a structure made out of 3 caring elements and a roof, covering the public space of the house. It is glazed on three sides and the V-shaped concrete roof has the expression of an independent object struggling to find its own balance on the three differently shaped concrete columns: a wall and two supports, one of which is subversively hidden in the fireplace.

The actual living area would not be exclusively limited under the enclosure of the roof, but consciously extended across the whole area between the existing house and the existing walls of the property. The windows slide along the existing facades on the outside and behind the new structural wall, leaving the space of the veranda completely open and by doing so blurring the boundaries between inside and outside.

The second element was one opening towards the garden and as a direct consequence all partitions and other built elements between the veranda and the garden were removed. Part of the renovation was also a new spiral staircase, a distinct object out of cast concrete linking the living area with a private upper floor. The new staircase is another concrete punctual sculpture, a mixture of round and drop shape: first spiral, then changing direction twice.

A series of other architectural elements around and along the garden are articulating the green space into a private universe directly related with the inside living area. As a result the project is made out of old and new fragments working together to find a possible way of living. Text description by the architects.