A private house on the Alassio hills
Facing the picturesque Gulf of Alassio and located in a bright panoramic view, a nineteenth-century villa includes a ruined and abandoned 35 m2 wide dependence surrounded by a wide terraced park. The latter was destined to be demolished by the client and transformed in a private residence. The starting point concept of the new project is to adapt the plan to the hill on which it is lying, following the typical Ligurian terracing, where the plan is a regular square plan and a unique open space facing the Sea.
The movement of the ceiling, which bends adapting itself to the features of the hill and descend toward the Sea, generates a staircase wood teak-coated and, at the same time, becomes terrace, seats, kitchen space, private bedroom and bathroom. The floor turns into a container which house in and hide the electrical appliances and the food cupboards-locker for the kitchen, coffers for clothes in the private area and living room objects; this rationalized organization permits to exploit at best the small space and to free the whole apartment from any scattered object. The kitchen worktop is fully made in cement and hidden by a portion of the wood-teak pavement which, if necessary, becomes the banister for the night area lifting it up. The choice of the furniture and of the coating material used was lead by the passion of the client for the sail, in fact the internal maximize disposition and design recall the interior of a sail boat.
Therefore, the apartment is subdivided in three different levels, having a gradient among the spaces: from the most private level of the bedroom and the bathroom, situated on the upper part of the plan, to intermediate level semi-private one, the kitchen, to the less private level, the living room, which is drawing out the glass-wall to the terrace, creating a continuity between the inside and the panoramic view of the Sea, visible from every point of the apartment. The described gradient of intimacy is mirrored also by the openings, which frame the lemon threes and olive threes of the park, gradually decreasing in correspondence of the more private spaces; in addition, the surrounding terracing terrain and the internal subdivision in levels are finely reminded through the openings which are rhythmically alternated.
Considering the external part, the outside walls lie on a raised up reinforced concrete slab. While, the external stone work coating of the house perfectly integrates with the traditional dry-walls of the region. The project aims to create an amalgamation and a dialogue between modern suggestions and traditional rural language.
