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Architects: Dario Castellino Architetto
- Area: 50 m²
- Year: 2021
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Photographs:Fabio Oggero
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Manufacturers: Wood
Text description provided by the architects. Lou Estela arises from the necessity to save and recover an old disused little building collocated in Moiola: a village at the foot of the mountains in Piedmont. The existent was an old simple typical stone shed. Customers wanted a simple and direct solution for residential use with the bare minimum for daily comfort: a bedroom, a toilet, and a living room.
The existing is not canceled but rather consolidated and recovered by making an extension that runs towards the Italian Alps. The almost foreign wooden body springs organically from the existent in stone towards the sun and the best landscape views. The need to give a curved shape to the extension together with the offset of the wooden panels on the facade gives the structure movement and dynamism as if a new body with new features were born from the old one.
The contrast between the two bodies is evident but they coexist at the same time by inserting the sleeping area into the existing one and the living area into the new one. The insertion in the context is given by the careful choice of the use of a native larch wood of the valley, prefabricated in a local factory near the construction site. The wooden structure is not only aesthetic but also load-bearing by studying the trusses with different sizes to give the ridgeline of the roof a shape that imitates those of the mountain
As materials, the exterior reflects the interior. The bedroom takes up the stone finished with a dark tone while the living room is covered with light wood panels that house and reflects the light that enters from the large main window.
The neck of the structure instead, acts as a connection to the two environments and it houses a white drywall block that contains the toilets.
