The terrace of senses | Lorella Casola

“each private space represent a shelter where a man builds his personal world; an area defined by a physical place where a man carries out his daily life and an imaginary place that fits his emotional needs”


The terrace of the senses is located in Naples, a Mediterranean city where the pleasantness of the climate and the strength of the natural elements have always influenced man’s life, vital rhythms and habits.
As in most of the cities with an irregular growth and a difficult socioeconomic framework, people had to adapt to those changes which, influencing their modus Vivendi, push them to live their territory in a conflictual way. The only possibility to find an equilibrium, between themselves and what sorrounds them, is then their private space (home).
Architecture acts as an intermediary between the “outside” and the “inside”. It creates places where people can live their private lives. Moreover it can be held responsible for a correct interchange and integration between the “inner” and the “outer” world.
Planning and designing an external private space is the occasion to give birth to an intermediate place which will heal the relationship between “in” and “out” and put people and natural rhythm in contact again. It will also create continuity and harmony between a social life and an inner life , between man and nature.


CONNECTION WITH THE TERRITORY The terrace of the senses is located on the hilly area of Posillipo, a wonderful Promontory which extends towards the sea, westly closing the gulf of Naples.
The name Pausilypon , which means “break from sorrow”( pausa dal dolore) ties the plan to the place it belongs: an open space, which opens 180° towards the wonderful view from dawn to sunset, even if it is set back from the coast.
LOOKING FOR CONTINUITY The plan wants to capture the essence of the place, transforming the terrace in a dangling garden, projected towards the gulf and the Vesuvio. The original structure of the space, defined by only one big regular rectangle on which an arcade overlooks, is reshaped through the creation of different levels/platforms that rise towards the sky, in order "to dive" towards the sea, connecting the outside and the inside of the terrace/garden. The already existing arcade is left as a filter between the inside and the outside of the house: passing through the shadow of this space, we “enter” the terrace/garden, here the path to regain the light begins, a path which will rejoin the terrace with its “outside”: the gulf and the city.

The search of fusion with the nature and the place, is stressed by the choice of the essences - typically Mediterranean - and from their distribution on the terrace: the trees with a higher stalk come out from a platform, harmonically fusing artificial and natural elements.
THE SPACES All different levels correspond to different spaces with different characters and atmospheres. Such spaces are distributed following a path that wants to involve the five senses, starting with the barbecue area crowned by spice bushes, in order to abandon oneself to the contemplation and relax of the solarium area and the conversation area as we approach the wonderful view over the gulf. The use of wood as main material ,assembled in various weaves, geometries and shapes also confers continuity to the different areas marking out their various characters.
THE ELEMENTS The chromatic games, deriving from the use of various materials (wood, pebbles of river and green grass), and the lines of development of the platforms establish a dialogue between the various areas of the terrace/garden giving it movement and continuity.
The wooden windbreak, accompanied at the base by bushes of flowers, let us focus on the views opened between the wide meshes, creating a game of shadows and thus regulating the strong light that overflows the terrace.