VILLA ESTATE IN MONTE ARGENTARIO

Italy [2002-2003, 2005]

LPA Collaborators: Giuseppe Postet, Carlo Guerrieri

Photo Credits: Lupo Marziale, Clive Nichols, Dario Fusaro, LPA

Description

An intense dialogue with the landscape gives form to this architectural reinterpretation of a private property in the Tuscan countryside, near Monte Argentario.

Tailored to personality of one of the office’s long-standing clients, the project is the result of a rewarding exchange of ideas developed over many years. From 2002 to the present, the design has constantly evolved, adding new pieces, from the renovation of the main house to the landscaping of a 33-hectare park, to the construction of new volumes used as guesthouses.

The main villa wraps around an original nineteenth century tower. The interior of this structure was completely redesigned, creating a dialectic relationship with a new prismatic structure in rusted steel and glass. The ancient structure, covered by a dense mantle of vines, preserves the intimacy of some of the home’s private spaces. This contrasts with the new addition whose glass walls link the interiors with their natural surroundings. This osmosis between the rooms of the house and the garden annuls any distinctions between interior and exterior, to the point that the trees appear to grow inside the house.

The landscaping design, developed in a close collaboration between Lazzarini Pickering and Paolo Pejrone, exalts the species of the forest, from orchids to mosses and lichens, creating an articulated route comprised of wooden platforms and stairs suspended above the underbrush. This route moves along an orthogonal geometry that runs across the entire property, emphasising the position of pine trees, cork trees and holm oaks that populate the park.

Reflecting ponds and a pool amplify the sense of calm intelligently evoked by the project, introducing a play of reflections and reverberations created by natural light.

The volumes of the new spaces reintroduce the warmth of rusted steel. Set alongside the varying shades of grey of dry laid stone walls they turn toward the suggestive panorama surrounding the property. The result is a sort of outdoor courtyard, delineated by horizontal and vertical backdrops.