TEA HOUSE | Lorenzo Guzzini

The project starts by the site. There were a small plot nestled inside a wood surrounding, close to an historical village in the nord Italy. The situation was very similar to a landscape of Japanese Tea House. That's why the name and even because with this house the challenge was to transform the routine in a sort of ritual. The main problem was to create a structure that would have to answer to the historical and natural environment and at the same time solve the problem of the site: the solar irradiance. The first rule to have an "environmentally friend" building is to take advantage of what the nature can offer.So we decided to use a traditional shape of roof, but twisting it enough to allow the winter sun to go inside the main spaces. We built the house with shadows and lights. This slope gives a spacial hierarchy, drawing the living space towards the South where the roof is higher, and the services and bedrooms towards the Nord where the roof is lower. We decided to use a material that is commonly used for the streets, the draining concrete, but cause the slope, reinforced with a stainless steel net, anchored to the top of the roof. The system is similar to a flat-roof, and instead to have a gravel coat to protect the waterproof membrane, we used the draining concrete. This solution allowed to have a great thermical performance inside the house because, this concrete is naturally ventilated and being not continuous, the solar exposition doesn't increase her temperature.