CM . IA house: a rational revolution.

At the end of 2020, in the bolognese countryside, the new construction of a detached house with a private garden and close to a public park started.

We were contacted to deliver an interior design projects but after a first meeting with the clients, we proposed also to review the general layout having a new one where the furniture will be protagonist of a strong spatial change.
We had a generous volume under a double pitch roof with a consistent slope, so we started working in section and we proposed a new mezzanine.

We thought a complete spatial integration where the upper level becomes a natural expansion of the living room at ground floor and we declined the “promenade” theme as a succession of backdrops.

The spatial revolution is based on a rational sequence of volumes that create visual backdrops and hide the classical connective and functional systems.

The staircase is incorporated in a sterometric volume and is visible frontally from the entrance while from the dining table the backdrop that we can see is the kitchen. The large green grey wall system also divides the living area from the sleeping area and creates an elegant and modularly balanced base that supports the light mezzanine with the wooden roof.

Purity, refinement and linearity are the values of living that the project wants to express and that are witnessed by the wood essences, colors, the lacquered furniture and the architectural details that we find punctually in the various areas. The wood is present not only in the laminated roof but also in the visible cubes of the cupboard, in the staircase and in the details of the handles.

After the long equipped wall we find ourselves in the sleeping area where the doors flush with the wall at full height define the cleanness of the connections and guide us to the bathroom that concludes the succession of the scenes identifying itself as the last and most precious among them for peculiarities of details and materials. The theme of this space is “inception”: small gold inserts enrich the materic grey gres on the walls and the shower glass is shaped on the top that supports the two circular bowls.The satin gold faucet fits elegantly but gracefully into the space and the light bodies also complete this picture in which the containment becomes an opportunity to balance the horizontality of the top with the verticality of a wooden volume with ribbed finish. Even in the rooms we find custom-made furniture in colors ranging from light blue to dark blue and that are combined with the warmth of wood.

The furniture in this project is real architectures and not just decorative elements: they define the space becoming connecting elements, alternating moments they hide with others they reveal. Going in this direction we have not only the mentioned staircase-kitchen module, but also the white cupboard that is filtering the entrance with the garage and is also a coat hanger, while the kitchen is in relation with the bedroom armchair and the plasterboard volume on the top of it that hides the suction system. In the mezzanine, we used the column to divide the relax area from the small office and the connection is done by an L scaped custommade piece of furniture .

The furniture pieces are like bodies that lie on a grey background and they are clearly cut by the zenithal lught coming from the velux in the roof. In this project is renovated the eternal play of the architectonic narration done by radical choices, compromises and playful experience to reach our rational revolution.

Casa B . CL: a playful optimization.

In Bologna Meloncello area, near the city stadium, a minimum size apartment with an unpredictable future has been transformed balancing shapes and colors.

 47 sqm can expand perceptually if the right decisions are taken without giving up to a playful experience. How can it be possible? First of all transforming an hallway into a kitchen, then designing a piece of furniture made by solids and voids, along a structural portal transformed into a double archway.

 The apartment spaces weren’t adequately exploited, so the layout was redesigned eliminating two main elements: the long entrance hallway and the tiny dining room. This wasn’t used because too small, the only heating system was an old stove located on the left close by the entrance, on the wall that divided this space from the living room. This wall was demolished and a new structural portal was created. To have an hall and a wardrobe in a single piece of furniture, we designed a customised closet that also frames the kitchen having a playful role.

Through it, we have been able to maintain the new openspace and to have a functional volume collocated between the two arches.

 We decided to not express the structural frame and we have used plasterboard to create two arches with a small central area where the “hole furniture” is located becoming a double face element: from one side is shoe rack and closet and on the other side the final element of the kitchen.

The apartment has been equipped with heating and air conditioning system, sections of the floor were removed allowing the passage of electric and hydraulic system and the parquet was placed on top creating a warm background for the new plastic and colorful volumes.

The elements that could have formally spoiled the project, became instead an opportunity to characterize it. So the old hallway between the bathroom and the bedroom, was reduced to have the new laundry expressed by a clear blue volume to hide the misalignment between the walls.

The two arches have been designed to pass seamless from hall to living room and kitchen delimiting softly the spaces and the void of the entrance furniture let you look the kitchen being also a seating area.

Functionality and play coexist together with shapes and colors. The bathroom, revised and re-proportionated, becomes a mediterranean ambient where the brightness of the small white listels exalt even more the white and blue geometries of the pavement.

B.CL house is an house that reflects the personality of its inhabitant: a young designer that projects without forgetting the importance of play and smile.

B . I house: a gentle meeting of visions.

B.I house is a “bolognese” space that welcomes without showing off, an apartment with smart and sensitive changes aiming to maximize the potential of the existing space. 

The project expresses some themes that are very important for the practice research: the maintenance of valuable elements, legacy of the past, without losing the renovation opportunity. The additions are resolute and functional with modern components that are impressive and simple at the same time giving a minimal and warmth touch. 

This is visible from the entrance, where vintage second hand mirrors with golden frames stand out on a raspberry plum wall. On the right an elegant portal drives to the openspace: a bivalent ambient with the kitchen on one side and the living room on the other. The two areas are highlighted by a change in materials: the linear kitchen is connected to the rustic gray cement finish over terrazzo gres flooring that replaces the ancient parquet just in this area. The wall finish passes from cement to wallpaper reaching the other side of the room with the custom bookshelf faced by the green sofa. 

In the bedroom the wallpaper covers also the bed head wall fading into the intense blue ceiling. This intimate space is completed by the full height white wardrobe and some vintage furniture. 

The bathroom is a surprising space with a great material combination of “cocciopesto” and big size gres tiles with green tones inspired also by oxidized copper. The “cocciopesto” is an antique technique based on lime that has an unequal and materic finish and this style goes on in the space with the textured tiles till meets the shower divided by a minimal and modern crystal slab.

The cement top is in conjunction with the kitchen one. It makes the base for the oak piece of furniture and the ceramic white oval bowl.

To complete the picture, we find arch shaped mirrors that create a playful and smart corner integrated with the lighting system. 

Minimalism and warmth, essentiality and decor join together in the house where Ci has met MA and where they currently live.

B . P house: the power of respect.

This intervention has involved an apartment in Santa Viola area in Bologna. Located on the last floor of a ’60s building, it has remained as originally designed. The needed modifications permit to rent the apartment: we have operated just on the shell and the internal finishes while the furniture choice was left to the future tenants. 

The main target was respecting and valuing the consistent heritage of the place: polychrome marbles, custom furniture and generous spaces were maintained and developed through a careful mending of the new voids to give new life to this  elegant apartment.

In the living room we had to maintain the yellow Siena marble, the old wood frame door single glazed and the oriental bar closet. 

We have eliminated the grey wallpaper, the maintained elegant door stands out resilient and smart and you can overlook the new kitchen. Close to it, we have created a new hall that was detached in the past and gives now a simple new touch to the house. 

The kitchen space and the dining room perfectly represent the theme of the intervention: although often the change is hidden or covered to let the new comes, in this case the past is underlined and expressed strongly because it has the same design importance of the modern parts. 

Different materials are joined together: the existing marbles are connected by the new gres pavement with metal effect and the final status is a renovated balance where different layers coexist in a dynamic configuration.

The kitchen, in coherence with this approach, doesn’t hide its modern and new status being placed over a new dark piece of pavement. 

Light, simple and not protagonist as the power of respect. 

In the bathroom, as the client requested, the old yellow mosaic is maintained and the new dark gres is joined to it: the final result is a new bathroom with a vintage flavour. 

This project reflects our approach that targets to valorize the existing if, after analysis, is judged as interesting and integrable. We like using new techniques and materials to create interesting mixes with the elements remaining from the past to express our personal creative result. The limits become enrichment to create a new scenario where past and present are joined in harmony.

B . N house: don’t move, improve!

Bologna citycenter, Via Nosadella, a young couple is waiting for the second son in a special and welcoming house but small, with a weird layout and a not fully utilized patio.

Changing apartment and leaving all the memories awayto explore new horizons should seem the right solution, but would it be really impossible remaining in a readapted space?

Maybe no…but a bathroom sholud be canceled and it seems “almost” impossible adding a shower to the remaining bathroom.

We work on this “almost” to have a bespoke project that shows how sometimes the first choice is not always the resolutive ones.

In the new layout the children bedroom becomes bigger including the space of the deleted bathroom and it is enriched by new simple and colorful pieces of furniture that makes Bea and Ale’s bedroom a playful space.

The remaining bathroom should be gifted with shower. The choice is adding a new green block. This element represents a strongly characterized and characterizing add connected to a pavement change: a new transition area is created.

The intervention, as in other our projects, is clearly expressed, it is not hidden and becomes a possibility of chromatich enrichment.

The resistence inhabitative act is expressed recalling a poetic where the intervention finds an exact place in the existing space.

If outside the volume is sharp and smooth at the same time through the green color, inside the pure white becomes the protagonist together with the organic drawing that connectes shower and washbasin. If the line seems simpering forstly, it’s the most optimazed spatial way to solve the space.

Brightness and minimalism are targeted through white listels and alternation of concave and convex surfaces that create light games and reflexes in the shower. An extended mirror surface and a bespoke piece of furniture with a final birch panel on it complete the curve in a system that seems almost suspended inside the green space.

Custum furniture is drawn not only in the living area and in the bedrooms, but also inside the new “pergotenda” in the patio. Inside the grey furniture under the “pergotenda” not only clothes are washed, but also some mornings, Matteo shaves the beard.

Also this small behaviour showes us how much the clients would stay in the aprtament…where everything remains and everything changes.

B . C house: the minimal adornment.

Changing without making it notable and being minimal could be a choice and it often represents a trend in the last years. In this case we have faced a real necessity to make our intervention minimal but snappy.

The apartment is located in one of the most beautiful areas in the downtown of Bologna, close by Porta Castiglione. The strange shape is connected to the central court and this affects the interior design.

The house was already completed and functional, but the clients wanted to completely review it to feel it really their home. To reach the target we have operated on furniture, coatings and lights without losing the main target of minimalism. We updated an apartment belonging to the past toward the modern needs of a growing family: the conditioning system has been added, we have rethought the living room and completely changed the private bathroom of the master bedroom.

The elegance of the apartment is the same of our clients, which allowed us to preserve the main essence of the spaces celebrating them with strong and brave decisions.

The cement sink is the synthesis and the manifesto of this approach. The bathroom is narrow and long , with all out of square walls, so we have introduced an organic and monolithic object: a custom cement sink designed by us completely shaped on the surfaces of the space. It is an unicum not only for material but also for its shape.

We have started from this object to apply the minimal adornment to the entire bathroom: big size grey tiles on the floor to create a neutral and uniform background to host the monolith. Matt and shine small white triangular tiles on the wall that are reflected by the two mirrors to enlarge the space.

The same approach has involved the furniture in the living room (partly bookshelf and partly food storage) where the voids left from the old intervention were used and joined together by a white and minimal basement/sitting area.

The valuable spaces are carefully illuminated by the new materials: in the external patio the new light pavement helps to enlight the space. New lights are introduced to fill the lighting gap of the apartment.

In this case doing exactly what it was necessary and nothing more was essential to reach the minimal adornment.

CP . SC house: Maremma 110.

We could sum this project up with two words: Maremma and 110. An old cottage built at the end of ‘800 in Castiglione della Pescaia was retrofitted by an intervention of Superbonus 110 to have an energetic update.

The rural complex was made by a two storey house and an old stable converted into a warehouse.

Our intervention has involved the second floor of the main building, reshaping the apartment layout and optimizing the space. The main demolition has involved the additional suspended ceiling that wasn’t part of the original building and through the ages has covered the wonderful wood beams and lowered the space.

The new hybrid heating system is connected to the photovoltaic one installed above the stable roof allowing to heat up and cool down the new spaces of the bedrooms and the new openspace that not only has doubled the area up but has also increased the volume with the new heights.

The perimetral loose masonry has been consolidated through the “betoncino” technique and thermally insulated with an internal new layer.

The same insulation has been added under the roof , the division between living room and one of the bedroom has been demolished along the addition of two more bathrooms.

The retrofit and modernize challenge for an historic building of Maremma with no foundations has permitted us to face the theme of the existing in a completely new environment giving us a great motivation to reach the final result.

Outside the building retains the same brick aspect that represents it from the construction and permits the landscape integration, inside the intervention shows its contemporary essence.

A new continuous pavement becomes a connecting element for the spaces that are defined with different materials, styles and colors. Reused furniture and new lighting elements create this unique balance, reflecting the spirit of this holiday house in Tuscany where the clients from Rome and Bologna go to enjoy their relax moments during the year.

We have maintained and brought to new life old parts of the existing architecture, supplying what the owners needed to enjoy these renewed spaces.

This intervention represents an example on how the architectonic act preserves the past making the spaces suited for present and future uses.

R . AS center: the color space.

This project is identified as restyling of a medical center.

The main challenge was making more pleasant an area of the center attached to the main part in a second phase.

The target has to be reached with a low budget and without changing the layout.

Color is the real protagonist.

Can color define the space?

Color can create perceptions so it could define spaces. With a small budget, we have managed to give more depth and pleasantness to the connecting spaces and to the gym bringing back peace and balance inside the physiotherapy boxes.

The other important element was the light. In the corridor we have changed the disposition of LED lights to have  longitudinal direction and to be in coherence with the new color bands.

Lights and colors are joined together to give new life to spaces that had just a functional essence before and are playful and interesting now.

The dark ceiling has been eliminated in the boxes to avoid that these small spaces could appear even smaller and the lighting system completely reviewed with a lateral lighting cut and new minimal spots on a track.

Balance and right color selection, in coherence with the merchandising, were the main actors of the restyling with the simple, but radical intervents too.

Our final answer is clear: color could be space and space could be color.

CI . KL competition: project for emergency.

The ideas contest theme is designing a centre to deal with emergencies. The call is for a modular solution to be built with a low budget. It has to be flexible for different typologies of emergency. The spaces, after the emergency time, have to be reconverted for other community needs. Easy mounting structures and simple technologies were preferred.

Our proposal shows 4 timing phases that permit to pass from emergency to a new life era. Every phase represents a different modular configuration of the center. In the first one ill people are separated from healthy people, after this the medical system becomes more structured for the medical treatments till the final new life configuration when the center can host a school or events.

The project materials are gravel, earth bricks, earth rammed walls, wood, bamboo (easy to find and to adapt) and are used to create a frame completed by colorful textures and fabrics to make the architecture more pleasant. The roof is a metallic layer.

The modular composition is made by repeatable cells with a different final configuration through the joining method, the alternation of voids and fulls and the different roofs. The final phase is also characterized by a circular earth rammed wall.

Every single architectural element wants to represent an action to be copied in an emergency phase: the project has to be fast and effective, beautiful because resolutive today like in every possible future scenario, possibly a better one.

Competitions CRU . CAS: reconnecting points.

Castelfidardo is a small village with an historic downtown in the region of Marche. It still maintains an original urban scheme while its dynamic past life is slowing down in the present days.

The requalification project of the historic centre has as main target the improvement of the existing urban space without compromising the authenticity and the original attitude.

All the analyzed areas are connected by a common “fil rouge”: a reconnecting path that joins points of interest together not creating a new scenario, but a new urban balance where the potentialities of the places are expressed at their best. The proposed urban furnitures are minimal, simple, sustainable, flexible and characterized by the red color in coherence with the planning regulation. The starting point (metaphorically and functionally speaking) is in “Porta Marina”, principal city entrance. The drivable flow is rethought relocating parking areas and terminals of autobuses and taxis. This change permits to enlarge the park area and the pedonal square with a new pavement where we find the new infopoint called “Il Mantice”.

The new expanded green square is connected through a new elevated crossing with an e bike storage at its end. This turns into the new city welcoming area and in this point the qr code tour starts. The infopoint is a circular building with two completely different elevations: translucent panels in polycarbonate cover the red tubular metal structure on one side, while on the other side, the structure characterized completely the architecture defining the most flexible part used as relax area, playing area and events. On the rooftop we find an integrated photovoltaic system that permits electric energy production. This new multipurpose space can be utilized also for night events like videomapping and this is an opportunity to celebrate historical Risorgimental events projecting on the historic citywall where different layers of history are overlaped.

Continuing through Via Roma, the new cycling-pedestrian path, expanded and reviewed, becomes the linking elelement that enables to enjoy Castelfidardo passing through the requalified points till reaching Belvedere del Pincetto. In this area the proposal is articulated with new flowerbeds integrated with the existing green and a new pavement. The new urban furnitures identify a rediscovered reading and snack area where you can realx and enjoying the sweet hills of Marche. This area is connected to a new scale that is located in the same place of the old one but it’s redisegned completely to create a “promenade” to access the historic centre. Trento Trieste square, characterized by 5 lindens, is utilized mainly as parking area. To change this scenario, we eliminate few parkings proponing a new pedonal path that connectes the existing sidewalk to one of linden. This becomes an occasion for “slow life” and break through the eccentric bench around the tree.

Finally the project focuses on the main square. This, by definition a social and sharing place, is actually a transit and stop area mainly for cars. The project, already approved by the admistration, provides the parkings outplacement and it is the starting point for the other proposed interventions: a new sandstone flooring is an inception between the existing porphyry with a lateral brick stripe as separation creating a path to emphasize the most important buildings. To complete this new floor, a lighting system on the sides is provided: embedded lights of the same size of a sandstone block. The Fisarmonica Musem, currently signposted with a banner affixed on the facade and barely visible, is provided with dedicated ground signs. A new white lettering system enriched the new floor, anticipates and intrigues the visitors from far away. Wooden sittings are thouth as a modular and flexible system and can be used in different typology of the events by the comunity.

Competitions CI . RH: Revive Aia through Landscape

The proposal aims to define a new housing model in a rural context redeveloping Cascina Lossano.
The “aia” is redifined through a new landscape drawing and the private spaces are organized and connected by collective spaces that are protagonists.
Our renovation would be not only a refurbishment of the blocks, but also a new rural vision/model. The existing old blocks with their rural background find a new life in a masterplan where public and private spaces speak together through new green areas and external facilities layout.
There is a common design approach (every apartment is opened towards the common area with big windows and rooms/services are connected to the private spaces) but every block is characterized by different materials and features. These design details differentiate the apartments creating a large market offer.
Green, water and path design help to enrich the final perception of space and future inhabitants can find a urban system like in the historic villages where housing and nature create a good living balance.
The flow distribution is an alternance of direct routes and fluid paths: buildings are connected or distanced by these elements.
The secondary path runs along the artificial river and arrives to the “greenhouse” block, located behind the block C backdrop.
The model proposes a residential scheme enriched by services and multipurpose spaces. These can be used by the residents or for external special events.
The “greenhouse block” is the pivot element serving the new swimming-pool and hosting a coworking space and a bar/restaurant.