house rv | Federico Delrosso Architects

Places and things may change, but so do houses. If someone returned to Vandorno after a long absence and intended to take his bearings from a modest single-family home clad in pink concrete with white windows, he would soon lose his way, because the house that took its place bears no resemblance whatever to the original. Admittedly, that memory lives on in its present and past inhabitants, and in the person who refurbished it. Here Delrosso worked on a pre-existing structure designed and built by his father in the 1970s, and inhabited by the parents of the present owners. This second generation of inhabitants – who have kept up the family friendship established at the time – decided to entrust Delrosso fils with the redesign. This transmission from father to son completes the circle both professionally and personally. From the outside the new skin harmonises with what is happening indoors, and fulfils the requirements stipulated by the new inhabitants. The project involved re-scripting the building at both compositional and formal levels, but also a degree of decontextualizing with respect to the surrounding built-up area, resetting the clock so to speak. The new building grew upward and outward over the existing structure. The grafting of a new block of three storeys permitted the creation of a swimming pool lined with stone, accessed via a sun-deck created in place of the roof. Additional features include an articulated metal structure providing ample terraces for the day and night area, fostering a hitherto overlooked contact with the greenery in which the villa is immersed. Which also provides greater privacy. The structure as a whole was then remodelled to give the complex a more regular geometrical form. Delrosso is not shy of admitting his references, and took inspiration from the renowned Smith House by Richard Meier, based on a close study of the surroundings and rooted in the territory, with a “natural artificiality” that alters the space while merging with it.
 
total area: 305sqm + 230 sqm porticoes