The project transforms a small historic chestnut drying house (“metato”) located in the municipality of Marliana, in the hamlet of Momigno, into a single-family residential building through renovation and a simultaneous volumetric extension.

The original stone envelope is preserved intact: the structural consolidation is entrusted to an internal steel substructure, working invisibly to ensure seismic upgrading without altering the character of the historic building.

The extension, built entirely with an X-Lam timber panel structure, recalls the typology of local rural buildings — featuring a pitched roof with traditional clay tiles, plaster finished in a tone close to the local stone, and wooden window frames — connecting to the existing structure through a transitional volume whose perforated brick façade filters light toward the internal glazed surfaces.

From an energy-performance perspective, a heat pump, solar thermal and photovoltaic panels, and rock wool insulation ensure high envelope efficiency. The project seeks a balance between two temporal dimensions, where the forms and materials of an ancient rural building tradition coexist with contemporary technologies and energy performance standards.