The project is aimed at restructuring a low building formerly used as a workshop and converting it to residential use. The building, featuring a flat roof and a property’s courtyard, is located in a typical Turin city-block and looks like an independent building inserted in the urban fabric. Located in an inner courtyard in the district of San Salvario in Turin, the building is compressed and “squeezed” among other buildings of different heights and types.
The scope of the intervention, combined with the nature of the property, encouraged us to reflect on the modalities for living in a villa inserted in an urban fabric, and evaluate those visual and spatial relations that may arise between a private space and the environmental context. The owners expressed the wish to live in a space strongly connected with the outdoor space, bright and in contact with the green outside. The project intends to reshape the existing volumes through demolish-rebuild operations. The demolition of the elements inconsistent with the original building, the addition of a new wing in the north side and the construction of a blind wall on the boundary line of the property define two empty spaces: the courtyard and the patio, around which the living space is configured. The courtyard becomes the real core of the project, with all the rooms of the house facing the open atrium. The patio, like a room in the open, is connected to the living area through large sliding fixtures. In winter, the large windows allow the light to come in; in summer, the space is expanded by fully opened “door windows” ensuring a full-continuity relation between the inside and the outside. The flat roof of the building and the new wing has been transformed into a roof garden and a terrace to emphasize the outdoor space.
The new skylights inserted in the roof ensure maximum light yield even in adverse seasonal conditions and offer a pleasant view of the sky. The green elements become a real building material. Ten trees and about 160 sqm of lawn embellish the courtyard, the patio and the roof. The living space is developed around the green and below it. The full-height windows of the courtyard and the large sliding “door-windows” of the patio help create a relationship of continuity between inside and outside and integrate the living space with green elements. The purpose of the green is to ensure a perceptive comfort, as an endless source of visual and thermal comfort. Trees mean shadow in summer and light in winter through their bare branches. The low building and its courtyard have been transformed into a “house among the trees” and, in addition, into a real garden, to the pleasure and satisfaction of the owners and the inhabitants of the nearby houses.
