Casa Santa Maria | Studio GUM

“Santa Maria” House is situated - together with the church from which it got the name - on the top of the 340 steps connecting the historical center of Ragusa Ibla to the upper part of the city called Ragusa Superiore that was rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake.

The view from this point is extremely suggestive since it overlooks the old city and the Monti Iblei valley.

The house has three levels, the first level being adjacent to the rock because of the scarp soil, and the others to the nearby buildings, and it has two different entrances one from the stairs on the south side, and the other from a narrow street on its east side.

The block in the plan has a longitudinal shape which is more regular in its north side while it becomes narrower as a trapezoid in the southern side. The blind sides of the building are the west and the north ones, while the others open to a very panoramic view since ther are no other buildings in front of it.

All the rooms of the house are light and luminous because of the south-east exposure of the main elevation. Due to the interconnections and overlapping of the different buildings towards the years (two portions at the second level are actually two different properties without a clear division of their parts), the block is not uniform in its external area of intervention. 

The eighteen century house, with its older lower ground floors, has been bought by a couple from Turin that wanted to turn it into a private residence for two hosts and four guests.  The client project included the building of a terrace and a lift to get in, and the integration of the two lower parts in order to occasionally host the sons and their families. However part of the design changed while in progress so that the idea of the lift was abandoned and it was decided to make the two lower parts independent from the house in order to use them for tourist purposes.

The house has three levels: on the first level there are two lower independent parts and another one to enter the main floor (all of them are dug into the rock and vaulted), and

a mezzanine with the access to the flight and with a stone staircase to enter the main floor too; on the second level there are four rooms all connected through doors, and on the third level there is a small attic which is connected to the central room by a narrow and steep stone staircase.

The intervention has been mainly conservative. However it has been carachterized by a decisive process to both ensure the functional and distributive aspect as well as that of comfort: the demolition of two decks right above the stone staircase, and the insertion of a second flight of stairs to access the terrace. This procedure can be considered as the core of this projet since it allows to clearly identify a main entrance, from which it is possible to access all the other rooms.

The attic above the living, once the deck and the preexistent steep staircase have been knocked down, holds now the new light and filtering flight, made of iron and micropore steel plate, from which it is possible to get to the terrace and that allows the light to enter from above to enlight the lower levels and to finally reach the lower part main entrance.

A metal structure, fixed to the two decks, seems to be suspended since it is detached from the ceiling as well as from the floor. It gives stability to the iron flight and it functions as a parapet for the entire staircase. It visually works as a “lighting lens” which lets the natural light come in and conveys it from the upper part to all the three levels during the day, while at night it enlightens the interior space through a series of lamps inside it.

The entrance from the staircase becomes the gateway to directly get to the kitchen. The two central rooms at the first level are made to host the kitchen and the living. At the extremities there are the bedroom to the north, and the office to the south, both with a bathroom, which overlook the belltower.

From the terrace it is possible to get to the attic, above the bedroom, which is used as a service space. For the same purpose and with the aim of hiding all the plants of the structure, it has been used part of the mezzanine floor, while the rest has been used as a laundry.

Finally, on the ground floor, the two lower parts have been brought back to their original aspect, obtained a sort of primitive space.

Niches, lunettes and dacts for the water seepage dig a groove into the surfaces.

Because of the many plants to run and the several sanitary permits required, the idea of leaving the original flooring escavated into the rock has been abandoned and a cast-in-place floor made of white concrete and cultured marble which has been smoothed, has been selected so that it could adapt to the irregular perimeter and give continuity and compactness to the space.

A wooden pure volume has been placed in this empty space to host a bathroom and a wardrobe in one of the two rooms. In the two lower parts, to satisfy and increase the tourist value of the place, the wallpaper covering the bathrooms has been tailored and decorated with graphics evoking the idea of the “sicilian garden”. The other furnishings are those essential to the rooms, and the beds have been designed in order to hide the plants and to solve the functional problems due to the lack of space.

The tailored wallpapers tell a unique story on the upper level too. Thanks to the cooperation with the graphic Copystudio and its contribution, the choice of covering the new walls with a different characterization, has been a design theme itself. A light blue sky with sprayed white clouds and swallows covers the new wall which separates the kitchen from the office; on the wall there are a door on the left side which heads to a small attic for the guests through a tailored staircase, a wall-mounted door in the middle, and a small high window that lights up when the bathroom behind it is used. In the bedroom a rich vegetation of different shades of green covers the volume of the bathroom and the headboard. The sink is placed outside the volume of the bathroom, as in the lower floor, in a more luminous position. On the opposite side there is a shower in the room inside a cavity which has been found during the renovation work. The wardrobe of the bedroom has been realized against the external wall, standing the entire height in order to hide the air conditioning system, and next to the window which opens on the balcony; some mirrors have been placed in the intradoses in order to increase the light and reflect the panoramic view into the room.

The original pitch stone flooring as well as the staircase, have been renovated and filled their small missing parts. Even the stone parts of one portion of the arch found in the office have been renovated, and all the internal doors have been paint stripped to bring them back to their original aspect, and then oil painted. The original flooring of the ground floor has been maintained too, while that of the terrace has been designed and selected from scratch. All those works have been conducted trying to mantain the patina of time and the irregularities found in the structure. The only reconstruction works have been made on the stone staircase for safety reasons. On the ground floor, at the main entrance, the irregular top layer excavated in the rock, has been mantained. The external alluminium shutters have been removed and substituded with wooden shutters. However there haven’t been any intervention on the finishing of the external elevation.

The project of Santa Maria House has been conceived and conducted as an intervention aimed to exalt the peculiarities of the original structure and increase its performances and comfort. A sort of “tale dress” for an intimate living.