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Architects: nicola auciello architetto
- Year: 2009
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Photographs:Celeste Cima
Text description provided by the architects. The project at this residential area in Rome begins and foresees the merger of three apartments spread over 4 different levels and an additional two rooms – an area now used as a laundry - in the basement.
It is a house intended for a couple with children and considerable interest in art as well as a rather convivial way of life.
The section study, performed before the floor-plan, was a vital phase to distribute the spaces on the different height levels imposed, in addition to the different functional requirements of the Client.
The apartment, in fact, is characterized by the layout on seven different levels: six levels imposed by the existing building, whilst the seventh (the large loft) was created in the design phase.
Approximately one third of the large apartment (approx 250 square meters) was allocated to the day area, living room and kitchen, with direct access and overlooking the private garden; the custom-built loft (in wood and iron), crosses the two environments length-ways, and the railing of the loft is the extension of the full and empty sections of the living area. The design of the flooring, which has huge differentiated slats to scan the volumes, projects them to the ground, reinforcing the sense of overspill between one level and another.
The loft area is designed with a relaxation-reading area in the first section, it then turns into a "children’s play area" (accessed from the bedroom) a kitchen, shielded by the large transparent tempered glass wall. The kitchen and the "children’s play area" hence interact with each other, looking and being looked at. Both convivial and "game theatre" areas: the hob and the art of cooking on the one hand, the joy and inventive skills of a child on the other. In the evening, just like the theatre, the curtain falls (a curtain used to obscure the glass).
The steps of the stairway used to change levels are made from grey resin cement, and are apparently detached from the walls (with slots of 2cm x 2cm in height and depth).
Having worked with progressive subtractions and simplifications, the few materials used give the whole area a most discreet air: massive oak slats, cement and resin for the stairs, resin for the covering of the bathroom walls with stone inserts. There are very few colors, as in this intervention the only colors found are those of the materials: white (the walls have been painted with matt enamels and the same natural and artificial light), the brown-grey of the oak, and grey (the stone kitchen) .
