House B in Mantova

Detail of the building with the brise-soleil in Pietra Senape stone and the external floor in Nero Mandala stone (supply and manufacturing by Pibamarmi and melStones)

On a plot of land surrounded by buildings with no identity, this house designed by Unostudio Architetti Associati aims to improve daily life, increasing comfort and the quality of domestic spaces. With these goals the project has been developed, to find within itself a reconstructed nature, with which one can establish those relationships denied by a disarming urban context. The result is a dilated architecture that widens in order to internally generate the voids designed to replace an absent place. A choice of self-sufficiency, which has its roots in the Roman domus.

Plan, front elevation and section

So each space occupies a defined place in a sequence which follows a vertical path, from the entrance to the garden placed on the roof. In fact the spatial succession of the Roman domus is vertically translated, in an organism that, as in the tradition, places the impluvium at the center of the composition. The kitchen and the living room overlook a garden built inside the building itself, with maples, convallaria and a stream of running water, a real natural enclosure, a precious garden, the setting of contemporary daily lives.

Interiors with floors and coverings in Pietra Senape stone (supply and manufacturing by Pibamarmi)

The house is designed to slowly discover the mechanics of the spaces that follow the alternation of external and internal. What can be distinguished from the outside can only be fully comprehended by following the light that, by entering, reveals the empty spaces, in a crescendo that culminates with the light coming from the corten lantern in the front façade.

View and section of the garden inside the house. Floor in Nero Mandala stone (supply and manufacturing by melStones)

The roof of the building is provided with functions that are normally placed on the ground; so, is seen as a garden, with relational spaces organized in separate areas: one devoted to the swimming pool and the sunroof, and one devoted to food and conviviality. Among these areas in the central atrium, there is the place for a strawberry tree whose foliage dominates the void at the center of the project.

Bathroom with tub, washbasins, floor and covering in Pietra Senape stone (supply and manufacturing by Pibamarmi)

The materials describe the gaps that the project generates. In this way, wood, stone, corten, water and vegetation give voice to the need to relate to spaces designed as an extension of the house itself. The main structure, in masonry and concrete, delineates the volumes, while steel builds the gaps and crowns the construction, measuring and uniting the composition.
All the floors and wall coverings in the interior spaces are in Pietra Senape, a natural stone supplied by Pibamarmi with Patinata finishing. Pietra Senape is also used in the external cladding and in the brise-soleil with Seta Grezza finishing. The external floors are in Nero Mandala, a natural stone supplied by melStones with Velluto finishing.

View of the façade cladding in Pietra Senape stone (supply and manufacturing by Pibamarmi)

The living room with floor and covering in Pietra Senape stone (supply and manufacturing by Pibamarmi)