Casa U+M: ‘800s Reloaded - Turin 2017

The property is located at the top floor of a ninetineth century building, in one of the noblest neighbourhood of Turin. The owners, a couple that used to live within nature, were wishing to get closer to the city centre and fell in love with this apartment for its silent and luminous views on the adjacent gardens. The flat needed significant restoration works, both on the systems side and on the finish side, and was showing all the charm of the bourgeois residence of that time: wide living areas, durmast oak floors, plaster molds on the ceiling and walls, wooden inner and outer casings. We based the project on these details and on the will to keep the feeling of another time. Through a preservative intervention that included minimal planimetric variations, we adapted the apartment to the needs of the new owners: a night area functionally separated from the living area; a distributing corridor that works also as a spine for the new systems; the wooden floors of the living areas have been restored by expert craftsmen, while the non-original floorings have been discarded to reacreate a material and stilistic continuity throughout the flat. Finally, we reconfigured the staircase that leads to the attic above the apartment. The result is a generous and comfortable residence, that reinterprets and renovates in a modern key the styles of the 19th century, and at the same time maintains the charm and the feel of time.
Photographer: Daniele Bianchi

Home F+J: All resin - Florence 2017

We were approached by the client through the Mondadori Facciamo Casa box, and from the “delivery architect” service came the project idea. The client's demand was clear: to fully renovate the bathroom finish and to replace the bath tub with a more comfortable shower cubicle, shortening the construction time. The bathroom is the main lavatory of a flat located at the top floor of an old building in Florence's city centre, a few steps away from the famous Piazza Santa Croce. Considering the need to minimize the construction process, we opted for a resin covering on both horizontal and vertical surfaces, overlapping the old 20x20 tiles. A wide sheet metal premolded, made to measure shower-tray was chosen, then resin coated on location to guarantee a materially uniform result. The resin, realized by NaturaeFirenze, comes in two finishes: a grey concrete resin Living for the flooring, with tones that recall the sandstone already present in the apartment, and an ivory white eco-mortar Charme with a warm and homogenous feel for the walls. The basin, fit in a beautiful marble surface, has been resin coated too, aiming at harmonizing the surfaces with the different materials. The final result is a modern bathroom, that combines contemporary materials and techniques with elements of the historical florentine tradition.
Photographer: Daniele Bianchi

Casa F+G: Home sweet home - Florence 2011

The intervention concerns the full regeneration of ground floor apartment belonging to an early '900 building, characterized by a long corridor that disengaged two bedrooms and a bathroom, leaving the kitchen and the livingroom at oppposite ends of the apartment. The project proposal revolutioned the planimetric layout making the bedrooms adjacent - supplied with a new bathroom – and creating a wider living area with direct access to the private garden. New countertops allowed the housing of the primary lighting source for each space, completed by branded lighting pieces. The final result is an architectural language rich of coontaminations between old and modern style, reinforced by the use of innovative materials, such as resin, together with more traditional ones. An original durmast flooring in planks of 25cm has been layed throught the whole flat, whereas porcelain gres in various dimensions has been used for the bathrooms. This style contamination is visible in the choice of the furniture, which alternates modern elements defined by clean lines to vintage and decò pieces together with custom made ones.