100 m2 on the second floor of a late 19th century building,in the vibrant heart of the multi-ethnicEsquilino district in Rome,become an ideal exercise forSTUDIOTAMATwww.studiotamat.com,which has recently completed the House on Track project, designedfor Matteo Soddu, co-founder of the studio, and his partner Sergio Marras.The overlap ofbeing both the designer and the client, has allowed a 360° design,a perfect combinationbetween the domestic dimensionand architecture to be admired.A stone's throw from Piazza Vittorio, the house is located in via Giolitti,along the Terministation.The three French windows of the living room and the studio have as their horizon thewall covered in Travertine, which houses the control tower that once regulated the railwaytraffic, designed in the early 1900s by Angiolo Mazzoni:“Looking out from the balconies,the gaze extends on one side to the Temple of MinervaMedica and the Horti Linciani, with the Castelli Romaniin the background, and on theother to the small church of Santa Bibiana, rebuilt by a very young Gian Lorenzo Bernini,who appears everytime as a small lifeboat making its way between the train tracks andbehind which stands the imposing profile of the station's water tower.
In the background,the noise of the whizzing trains, the sound of the horns that mixes with the whistle of theTranvétto, the picturesque urban line that connects the center with the Centocelleneighbourhood... And so we remember what prompted us to come and live here:thesurprising mix of chaos and wonder, which are the essence of Rome.”-tells the architect Matteo Soddu.The apartment was dark, cramped, with narrow corridors and excessively low false ceilings.The design started fromthe need to expand the spaces, creating a central open spacededicated to the living room,restoring the original ceiling with brick vaults andhomogenizing the rooms with a neutral texture-free floor.The use of color defines the areas,minimizing the number of doors and giving a feeling of great openness and versatility.The central nucleus, which in the previous arrangement housed the bedrooms, has beencompletely emptied, becoming the beating heart of the loft.At one end,the kitchendesigned ad hoc is covered with two contrasting materials: the steelof the drawers and the top, and the birch of the wall units, the fridge columns and the pantry.
A large vintage table with a checkered top is perfect for organizing dinners with manyfriends and as a theatrical backdrop for the living room.The living area,furnished with a black leather sofa, a coffee table and vintage officearmchairs found in a flea market in Berlin, houses an open metal shelving, framed bywalnut-covered audio speakers, which show the couple's large vinyl collection.To reveal the owners' background as DJs and event organizers, as well as the doublemeaning of the name with which the project has been ironically renamed, the consoleequipped with mixer, plates and CDJ, made of iron and painted in cherry-colored powder,which dominates the longitudinal wall, surmounted by the baroque shape of the Chalkapplique by Servomuto in pure white linen.
The neutral color of the walls, which recalls the reflections of the sun rays on the travertineof the station, highlights the brick vaulted ceiling. The studiois a volume defined by a shade of blue that recalls the sea ofSardinia, where thecouple comes from, and the typical color of the houses in Greece, where they often spendtheir holidays, and extends as far as the corridor, chromatically interrupting the uniformlime-colored resin that extends over the floor in the rest of the apartment. Inside, there are adesk, the Wassily armchair by Knoll, an equipped wall and a niche with a sofa bed, setbetween a service bathroom and a wardrobe space. Two vintage lights, positioned on the twoopposite corners, aim at the vaulted ceiling, here plastered in a neutral color that amplifiesthe sculptural effect of the blue that envelops the room.Thebedroom with the master bathroom,separated from the living area, find space where theliving room once was, and overlook a more private and silent internal courtyard.Characterized by a large arch that houses the sink, the bathroom is covered in three shades—yellow, pink, amaranth—of small-sized tiles, which identify the different functions. Thetwo portholes on the wall that overlook the bedroom allow for natural lighting.The bedroom follows the logic of the studio: it is as well a single mustard-colored volume, abox that encourages rest. The wall behind the bed is shaped to house a shelf for books andfor Nemo's Lampe de Marseille, while the large wall unit for the open wardrobe is shieldedby a full-height curtain with a toile dejouy pattern, in contrast with the Aperitivo suspensionlamp by Servomuto, made with Hermès fabrics and brass details.
