Morchiuso house, Como Residence, Residential Building Italy, Architect, Photo

Casa a Morchiuso : Como House

Contemporary northern Italian Architecture design by Marco Castelletti, Europe

2 Apr + 30 Mar 2012

Casa a Morchiuso

Date built: 2012

Design: Studio di Architettura Marco Castelletti

Photographs: Filippo Simonetti – Brunate

Italian: La casa è in provincia di Como, sulle colline davanti a dei laghi, è rivolta a sud.

English: The house is in the province of Como, on the hills in front of the lakes, faces south.

This house is the private home of the architects, Marco Castelletti.

Home at Morchiuso

The renovation of existing buildings is one of the issues in the coming years, the designers will face with greater frequency.

In this case the arrangement of a house, built in the late 70’s on the slopes of the hills surrounding the city of Grass, is an opportunity to rethink the construction not only in energy for the adoption of modern technology for the containment consumption but also to give a new architectural form.

The house was originally designed with the elements and materials related to the tradition, the random aggregation of local plant generated two apartments had a pitched roof with a complex and confusing series of ridges and flashings.

The purpose of the restructuring has been the search for a solution to make the two completely independent units and as such access to underground parking, and to reorganize the internal layout of accommodation with the recovery of the attic.

Having demolished the pitched roof, the existing perimeter walls have been erected in order to recover the plane of the roof and create a flat roof.

The new tire has a limit of the outer perimeter walls of the house and, at the back, the retaining wall of the ground; this roof defines a large square table, to which were attached metal vertical structures that support the orchestration of the coating wood which bordered on all sides of the house and encloses a volume stereometric.

The double row, formed by the walls of the house and the front grill of wood, generates double-height spaces, which remain as a transition space between the inner rooms of the house and garden.

This made it possible to rethink the genesis of the house imagining conceptually think of it as a single volume, solid, square, which have been withheld parts of porches and balconies.

This concept is evident from the color contrast between walls, black in contact with the outer perimeter of the square grid of wood and white walls of the recesses of the porches and balconies.

The renovation preserves the distinction between the smallest apartment to the east, and the larger, west, organized on three levels, including the basement, connected by a lift system that supports the spiral staircase to an elevator.

The units have entrances opposite each other, are arranged with the living areas to the south on the ground floor and the areas north and nights on the first floor.

On the first floor above the kitchen of the largest, occupying the space that was open hallway of the inputs of the original house, was suspended a flooded room, enclosed by perimeter walls and covered by a skylight glazed sliding during a sunny day turns out the room leaving her open.

This environment is unexpected and hidden in the center of the house and the first floor is accessible from both units.

From the water room, with a small turkish bath, you can climb to the roof via a terrace which looks out towards the back porch.

On the flat roof were inserted and solar photovoltaic systems, the glass roof of the mobile pool and a solarium with wood from which you can enjoy panoramic dell’affaccio south to the lakes.

The transformation has created a new home, where comfort and well-being can be felt in the various rooms that overlook the garden and the landscape and are a culmination of regeneration and alienation of water suspended in the room, in which remains in direct connection with the sky and its infinite variations related to the passage of days and seasons.

Casa a Morchiuso – Building Information

Architectural project: Arch. Marco Castelletti with Patrizia Viganò
Structural design: Studio Moncecchi Associati – Morbegno

Plant design: Plant Engineering Technical Study Ing. Marco Fortis – Como
Construction company: Losa F.lli Costruzioni Edili s.n.c. – Costa Masnaga (Lc)
Electrical system: Elettrica Arienti – Monguzzo (Co)
Plumbing and heating: Nava Ercole – Albavilla (Co)
Photovoltaic system: Solyndra
Water and swimming pool systems: Culligan – Como
Aluminum windows, skylight and special products: Thema – Verano Brianza for Schüco
Larch wood cladding: Pircher s.p.a. – Dobbiaco (Bz)
Floor and wall tiles: Atlas Concorde – Spezzano di Fiorano (Mo)

Photo credits: Filippo Simonetti – Brunate (Co)

Casa a Morchiuso images / information from Studio di Architettura Marco Castelletti

Marco Castelletti

Location: Lake Como, Italy, southern Europe