New Family House | Atelier Rampazzi

The project involved the construction of a new house developed on a single floor and characterized by the presence of a small internal patio. Its pentagonal shape is mainly due to the shape of the ground. A planimetric shape that, like a circle, avoids urban directions and references. The central core makes even more evident the presence of a concentric pivot which acts as the heart of the house, where the parts of everyday life meet each others visually, from the fireplace to the bedroom.

To balance the strong volumetric horizontality, we worked with a homogeneous and essential materialization and architectural language, consisting of distinct constructive and architectural elements, but in proportion and relationship to each other. The facades in wooden panels and the repeated full-height openings, which accentuate the verticality, are contrasted by the continuous concrete beam of the roof which acts as a crown.

The volume is finally articulated and concluded with the development of an additional volume on the roof, a sort of stairway, which emphasizes the presence of the courtyard and hides the building's technique, bringing a hint of craftsmanship towards the sky and the mountains. Basically, the tripartite structure of the facades, developed by means of the base, a central body and the crown, becomes the generator of a single body which pushes upwards in relation to the strong mountains of the Maggia Valley.

On a motorial level, the journey inside the house allows humans to relate continuously to other distant spaces, whether they are internal, external, natural or artificial. By transforming the mechanical movement of walking into a sensory walk that connects the artifice to the surrounding nature. This emerges in the passage between the entrance and the living area as in the relationship between the same and the patio, guaranteed by the loophole that connects the two places.

Ultimately, the proportions and rhythms experienced outside, in their relationships, lead to the perception of a small house. Despite the almost 4 meters high, without a human figure in relation, it is difficult to perceive any verticality since the work of contrast between the different material bands decreases their slenderness.

Externally on a chromatic and material level, we worked with the gray of the reinforced concrete of the crowning beam, which relates to the rocks of the valley, and for the central volume with simple brown-colored wooden panels, which also relate they with the landscape context that varies with the seasons.