Provincial Italian architecture updated random but harmonious rhythms

By Caterina Testa - 21 December 2020

Ellevuelle Architetti has updated Casa Gielle, overlaying one elevation with a metal grid that frames the surrounding landscape. A slice of provincial Italy nestled on the slopes of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, Modigliana is a small town in the province of Forlì. Over the past few decades, subdivisions for one- and two-story homes have been added to the town’s Roman and medieval plan, a reminder of which is the humpback Della Signora bridge. Ellevuelle Architetti was called in for the renovation of one of the many houses in the town that lack any real architectural identity and are more the result of a jumble of changes over the years.

With the practice based in Modigliana, its young designers have extensive experience with the existing architecture, with a string of commissions involving rethinking residences, schools, and even entire industrial areas, such as the competition for Bologna’s Sta.ve.co. industrial estate (link). The aim of this renovation was to standardize the overall appearance of the building, achieving formal coherence through a simple architectural language that would redefine both its internal and external spaces.

The steeply sloping site means that the house is oriented from north to south, with its façade overlooking the surrounding one- and two-story homes to the south, and the rear elevation overlooking the valley of the Acerreta River to the north. It was precisely a desire to open the home to the surrounding hilly landscape that led the architects to focus on the building’s envelope to develop a device that would both give architectural character to the residence and frame views of the countryside.

Arranged in an apparently random rhythm, a series of painted box profile columns was added, marking off the edges of the existing balconies and framing the surrounding landscape. Rhythmic and porous, this metal envelope acts as a second skin, transforming the northern elevation into a belvedere that overlooks the valley, reinventing the side stairway into a kind of open pergola, enhancing the balcony on the western elevation, and better defining the internal levels of the house.

The white of the metal grid continues inside the home, punctuating the oak flooring and custom-built furniture to define and optimize its spaces. The stairway, the fulcrum of the interior floorplan, has been reimagined as a lantern to bring daylight to the interior living areas. Seen from a distance, the northern elevation creates the impression of a kind of archetypal profile, its random, harmonious grid having given the home a distinctive new personality in this small provincial town.