a townhouse on Nepi’s piazza Duomo

The house is located in the historic town of Nepi, in one of its two main squares, dominated by the facade of the town’s Cathedral. In such an historical environment, the house’s interior stands in total juxtaposition with the surroundings, intentionally breaking with the historical context.
The original structure was a modest house on three levels, the result of different and incoherent amalgam that occurred over time. Later on, during the XIXth Century, a single façade consistently designed, unified everything.
The architectural project has maintained and restored the exterior façade as it was meant to be, recovering the original stucco details; while completely reinventing the interiors, emptying them of all structures, floors and roof and entirely redeveloping them on various levels, around a spiraling path that winds about a clearly defined, suspended central volume, in dialogue with two other volumes.
A continuous movement that starts from the garden level, leads to the study and passes onto the bedrooms, ending on the roof-terrace, from which one can see the Cathedral’s façade and the bell tower, up-close.
Through this route, which opens to different perspectives on the various environments, one has a complete vision of the house. A skylight in the terrace, running the full width of the house, cuts the interiors in a dramatic way, bringing natural light to the middle of the space and around the volumes.
From the original building, only the outer walls remained. The rest, including floor and roof, has been demolished to build a steel cage that would allow the suspension of the three volumes.
This steel structure is covered with plasterboard walls, Comiso stone, fluted slabs and worked wood in order to give particular visual effect rhythms.
Without walls and doors, the house works in an organic way and each space serves the other so as to have the maximum conviviality and sharing.
In fact, the house is a meeting and sharing point for the three generations of a large family.
For the livability of the house, the relationship between the living room and the garden was primary; a large full-height door leads to an outside area, partly paved and partly green, and from there to a small pool made of lava stone, the local stone. The drawing of the infinity pool, slightly elevated, recalls the design of the old wash houses of the old town.
Language is essential, the materials used are few. Space and light are the key ingredients used in this project.