Our Company proceeded with the restoration of this architectural environment from the beginning to the end, taking the responsability of all the choices made.
The starting point was a small though architecturally interesting old carpenter’s shop.
The building is placed on the ground floor, inserted in the housing unit that sorrounds it.
The bet was to make it a fine home, renovating and undelining the peculiar aspects of the structure, and at the same time mixing it with modern and original architectural solutions, through exploiting all the spaces at their maximum.
The environment, which is made of a single unit, was crossed by a big arch and by a portion of a second one, that disappeared in the wall.
It was clear that the old plaster covered a load-biring wall in local stones and hand made bricks.
The openings, wide, spread until planking level.
The need to raise the planking level and make it on two levels led to the sacrifice of the original floor with handmade tiles (which was also very ruined due to the continual use of heavy machineries).
The partitions were decided taking into consideration the aesthetic importance of the big arch and the choice to create a living room with the view on the road and the bedroom on the back of the road.
The result is a living room opening on the kitchen (only partially hidden) and on a studio, that can become a little guest room when needed, simply closing a big wooden accordion which is painted like the wall.
The kitchen, that has no openings towards the exterior, gets the light form a wide portion of wall in glass block that overlooks it and it is provided with a very effective vacuum system.
The sleeping quarter, accessible through a step, is composed by a small lobby, a medium size bathroom and a sleeping room, in which a mezzanine was addes, thanks to the 4 meters original height of the carpenter’s shop.
It was possible to reduce the height by raising the floor (also to have a better insulation) of 30 centimeters in the living room and of 50 centimeters in the sleeping quarter and by applying a fake ceiling. This solution also made the passage of air vents and pipings possible.
As far as the original walls are concerned, we had no doubt: we wanted to restore at least two walls in stone and the arches with handmade bricks.
For the floor we obviously used our handmade tiles. Since we did not want to risk being banal in the context of this particular architecture, we chose to make an experiment that required a certain imagination on the final effect.
This is why we mixed the classic tiles 15 x 30 cm with a traditional felted finishing, with 7,5 x 7,5 glazed squares of two colors, creating an original pattern of our production.
The opening of the front door required the realisation of a circular step, as it was left at the original ground level. The front door is framed in a beautiful brickwork highlighted after the old plaster was removed.
In the bedroom we managed to keep the arches convergences on sight; this detail, together with the mezzanine mentioned before and with a custom-made closet placed under it, gives the whole environment a great originality, combined with a great functionality.
For the floor and the coating of the bathroom we used our 15 x 15 squares, artisanally glazed with a second firing; the chosen colors are pure white and bright red.
They were laid on stripes on the vertical coating and with a rectangular dècor on the floor, in order to give cheerfulness and lightness to the room.
The shower is inserted in a pre-existing niche; the paint on the same chromatic scale of the red tiles and the suspended sanitary wares complete the glance on the room.
For the plastered walls, we chose a paint with wide horizontal stripes in two colours, in order to give a sense of space without diminishing the other architectural elements.
The choice of an extreme sobriety, enhancing the structural solutions, also occurred with the lighting, with minimalist LED lamps, and with the furniture, mainly Ikea with some element of artistic handicraft. The same solution was chosen for the fixture, the internal doors and the curtains.
