Project Info

Project Type

Design

Location

Cremona


Total renovation and expansion of a historic villa from the early 1900s, in an area designed by the hillside overlooking the city. Respectful restoration of the existing structure, both in the design of the elevations and in the use of materials (plaster based on natural lime and recovery of the original terracotta floors laid with lime, recovery of the vaulted ceilings in terracotta tiles and iron beams). The project involves the recovery of the two original floors and the turret (former pigeon house) with the expansion on the back for a new bathroom and a new bedroom. In the large private garden there is also a renovated tool shed, presently used as an independent house for guests, and various bodies added later and currently used as a garage, lemon house and dressing room, with bathroom and kitchen attached to the swimming pool. The project is based on the dualism between contemporary and traditional; the property ancient charm has been refreshed with solutions that have radically updated its spaces in function and image. Measuring with a rigid and not malleable plant, built with 50-cm-thick walls and punctuated by the ceilings with terracotta vaults and iron joists, two passages in the wall breach have been created to connect the two rooms of the living room. The original entrance porch was closed to create a jardin d'hiver that serves to expand the living area. The stairs have been redesigned according to the new internal distribution and made of Luserna stone like the existing ones. The materials remain the same, but the atmosphere changes step by step, room after room. For the rest, all the internal vaulted floors have been restored and plastered with lime, whereas the more deteriorated walls have been restored and finished with lime-based plaster. The stylistic note of the iron elements, a characteristic of the area, dictated the design of the missing or expanding elements. The goal was to emphasize with this simple layout and its rural materiality the construction philosophy of the early century, the area can still luckily richly boast.