House R / 35astudio


© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo
  • Engineer: Polistudio srl, engineer Emilio Panzeri
  • Quantity Surveyor: Luciano Pintossi
  • Constructor: Immobiliare Cardanini s.r.l.
  • Clients: Andrea Riccio, Gaia Clerici

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

From the architect. Located in the Oltre Po Pavese region, immersed in a hilly landscape full of  villages and castles, and in a flourishing nature made of  woods and large cultivated areas, Casa D’Agosto, a small village ,part of  the Valverde Municipality of  315 inhabitants, is just   twenty kilometers from Pavia.


© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

This small (120m²)  holiday home of a young Milanese couple was built on a piece of land with a slight slope of about 3000 sqm.


© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

Plans

Plans

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

The new home is fully made of a reinforced concrete monoblock positioned at the natural level of the  ground and of an open space in front of it, for the enjoyment of the air and the surrounding nature in summer.


© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

This holiday home is conceived  as an open-space on two floors articulated in a single double-height volume; characteristics of the house are its  lofts and the  45-degree rotation of the  traditional roof cover. The result is the creation  of four identical, stereometric and  trapezoidal sections. 


Sections

Sections

The interior space is divided as follows: on the ground floor we find  the living and dining area,  accessible from the outside garden through large sliding windows, in addition to the main access door, also glazed.


© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

The open-space ground floor is divided into a large double-height living area, a dining area located below the mezzanine and the open-space kitchen with concrete worktop and treated maple doors; a small bathroom with floor-to- wall and wall-clad disengagement with green cement serves both  the ground floor and  the upper floor.


© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

The access to the sleeping area is ensured by an open  staircase made of reinforced concrete, inserted into wall blocks also made of the same material ; the staircase is  adjacent  the living room.


© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

On the upper loft floor there are the two fully open  bedrooms, overlooking   the living area;  from the bedrooms’  large windows you can enjoy the view of the surrounding landscape .The relationship with the landscape is guaranteed by  large wood windows , some of them openable and others fixed, which together allow light, air and the view of the surrounding hills; all the openings are in fact designed according to the need of offering the best external sight. The reinforced concrete, used to eliminate any structural element inside and reduce  the construction costs, was placed  using  common yellow panels and leaving it internally exposed.


© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

The materiality of the few solid wood elements (kitchen, bathroom door, furniture and window frames); the elegance of the floors, made of monolithic concrete helicoptered  castings and finished with quartz paste; the rough texture of the exposed concrete walls and exposed ceiling. All these characteristics   help highlight the most sensitive and material aspects of the architectural work.


© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

The exterior finishes of the building ensure continuity with the interior; all the facades  are finished with a dark-gray,  coarse-grained , heat-reflective   plaster, grossly spread with a trowel; also the two-fold, forty-five-degree , double-faced cover is treated with poor material, normally  used in industrial shells (gray glove). It follows and confirms  the brutalist  language of the whole work.


© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo

© Andrea Carmignola & Maddalena Merlo