B Residence | Vincent Van Duysen Architects

B Residence offers an architectural experience where its inhabitants find harmony with nature. This home embodies peace and elegance, blending seamlessly with its natural surroundings. Designed as a private haven, it is the perfect family retreat, exuding timeless sophistication.

Situated on a sloping plot, the mansion presents two distinct facades. The north side is introverted and horizontal, with plastered brick volumes and expansive windows beneath the eave line. In contrast, the south side showcases soaring double heights, featuring terraces made of black terracotta bricks sheltered by generous roof overhangs.

As the morphological context of the land – a natural hilly and wooded landscape – instilled a vertical flow to the program, VVDA sought harmony between the building and its surroundings, achieved by accentuating the horizontal lines of the terraces and the overhangs of the roofs, a wholesome element with the environment. Superfluous elements were eliminated.

The idea was to bring the foundation above ground level, creating habitable surfaces such as terraces and imparting them the resemblance of a low masonry platform on which the building stands. As a result, the basement doubles as a plinth to the level above.

The open plan is based on the concept of eliminating partition walls and avoiding rooms as enclosed spaces. Large continuous volumes, articulated through simple architectural artifices, create a circumscribed environment: Air, light and views permeate every ambient with a sense of unity, preserving only minor subdivisions.

Loose furniture, incorporated within the architecture, becomes part of the building, as if a small project within a bigger macrocosm. Functional to the purpose of the house and integrating with the surroundings in materials and forms, the living room features solid natural wood blocks as an additional connecting element.

Within the elevation, the walls of the house are conceived as screens; they rise directly from the ground, while the windows line up as a continuous band below the eaves. Window compartments are protected from the elements (wind, sun, rain) by wide eave overhangs, a tectonic expression of architectural volumes, timeless where the careful composition of volumes is combined with the tactility of surfaces.

Lead Architects: Vincent Van Duysen, Massimo Colagrande

Local architect: Studio Pè

Carimate (CO) 22060, Italy

https://www.francope.com/

Construction company: Dino Marzorati s.r.l.

Cantù (CO) 22063, Italy

http://www.dinomarzorati.com/

Carpenter's works: Grasso Pietro Arredamenti

Mariano Comense (CO) 22066, Italy

https://grassopietro.it/

Lanscaper: Samuele Rocco

Desenzano del Garda (BS) 25015, Italy

www.erocco.net

Photography Credits: Mark Seelen (https://www.seelenplus.com/projects/)