When I was asked to develop this project, I suggested that the client, who lives and works in the countryside, take a walk to choose the "site" for the project together.

This ancient ritual, now lost, allows us to begin a journey where architecture is born from the very beginning of an intense relationship with the place and the people who will inhabit it.

It's the project of a wall and a cloud.

A wall to the north protects from the cold winds of the plateau: it's thick, textured, made of tuff like the hill; it's a high wall, its scale is that of the landscape and it disappears into it.

Against this primary sign, the wall, a low cloud shatters: the roof. It juts out toward the south, casting a broad shadow, like a thick lens, the color of copper sulfate. There is no façade; it is replaced by immaterial elements, a succession of porticoes, bridges, grilles, filters between interior and exterior, between light and shadow.

The house, dug into the hillside to the depth of one story, appears to be sunk into the ground, immersed in the surrounding landscape: this effect is determined by another design choice that characterizes the project. The choice was made to excavate the hillside, as can be seen from the cross-sections, to the depth of one story, so that to the north the building is just over one story high, while to the south it is two stories high, forming an internal courtyard whose two sides are formed by the natural contour lines of the land.

The excavated soil was used to model the building's attachment to the ground on the northern side.