house rv – biella IT

Places and things change and so do houses. If one were to return to Vandorno after a long absence and seek as a reference point a modest single-family house covered with pink concrete with white windows, one would not be able to orient self because the replaced space does not keep even a distant memory. Now safe in the memory of those who live there at the moment, those who have lived there, and who refurbished it. Delrosso worked here on a pre-existence, a house designed and built by his father in the seventies, and then inhabited by the parents of the current owners. This second generation of inhabitants – who have kept up the family friendship established at the time – decided to trust Delrosso with the redesigning of the property. This transmission from father to son completes the circle both professionally and personally. From the outside, the new skin harmonizes with what is happening on the inside and fulfills the requirements stipulated by the new inhabitants. The project involved re-scripting of the building on both compositional and formal levels, but also a degree of decontextualizing with respect to the surrounding built-up area, resetting the clock. The new building grew upward and outward over the existing structure. The grafting of a new block of three storeys permitted the creation of a swimming pool lined with stone, accessed via a sun-deck created on the roof. Additional features include an articulated metal structure providing ample terraces for the day and night area, fostering a hitherto overlooked contact with the greenery in which the villa is immersed which also provides greater privacy. The structure as a whole was then remodeled to give the complex a more regular geometrical form. Delrosso is not shy of admitting his references, and took inspiration from the renowned Smith House by Richard Meier, based on a close study of the surroundings and rooted in the territory, with a “natural artificiality” that alters the space while merging with it.

total area: 305sqm + 230 sqm porticoes
photo credits: Fausto Mazza