House by Lago Maggiore | Ruinelli Associati Architetti

The project addresses the theme of the urban gap, or Baulücke, and consists of the reconstruction of a small single-family house located between two adjoining buildings. It is a completely new building that replaces a pre-existing one of which it retains only the side walls, in common with the adjacent houses.

The lake front has been redesigned with small windows on the ground floor, which evoke the pre-existing ones, and wider openings on the upper floors, freely composed.

The new stone roof, which replaces the red tiles, and the walls in rasapietra resume the types originally present in the context.

Inside, the walls in rasapietra are left exposed, as is the new stair-chimney block in self-compacting concrete, with white concrete. The wooden components (slab and floor of the living room, furniture, doors) are chestnut, and mention the material already used on the site. The windows are in painted iron. In the bathrooms, floors and walls have a waterproof mortar finish.

The level of the ground floor is lower than the courtyard and sometimes the lake overflows, so the floor is in smooth concrete and the furniture and the kitchen, in natural sheet metal, are suspended.

There are two skylights between the living room and kitchen levels.

Collaborators: Fernando Giovanoli, architect - partner; Tamara Guerrazzi, architect; Fabio Rabbiosi, architect.

Consultants: Beat E. Birchler, structural engineer.

Photography: Marcello Mariana