Verago

In the hills near Piacenza, a single-family middle century home has been transformed into a summer residence. The house had aged, both in appearance and performance, so it was demolished to permit the construction of a new building with the same volume but with a totally new layout, completely reinventing the style and organization of the interior spaces. Seen from the hillside village where it is located, the new house is a low habitable building, but resembles a small tower when seen from the valley below. The house is accessed through the upper floor, where the kitchen has a panoramic view of the double-height living area and the large triple row of windows with views over the landscape. This out of scale “telescope” is the most recognisable element of an architecture that associates solutions inspired by local building traditions – the stone facade, wooden doors and windows – with other clearly contemporary elements: red steel window frames on certain windows, the shutters in the same red colour, and the asymmetrical layout.