Located between the coast and the Apuane Alps, the villa amazes with its distinct and clear features, through which the respect to the particular allocation can be recognized, where the touristic vocation contributed to the development of the place. In the chaos and in the planning approximation of big part of the contemporary Italian construction, the formula to highlight one virtuous example is simplicity.
The House in Forte dei Marmi, realized by FABBRICANOVE (Enzo Fontana, Giovanni Bartolozzi, Lorenzo Matteoli), an architectural studio founded in Florence in 2009, is the result of precise attention to the relation between the natural landscape and the built environment. And yet, attention to the clearness, the simplicity, the liveness of the domestic spaces, the constant, direct and equal interaction with the artisans, in particular with carpenters, the definition of the details that contribute to the uniform and homogeneous perception of the intervention. Actually, exactly this last point is what builds the real soul of the dwelling, thought as a sartorial work, searching for a formula that allows the identification of the whole project as one unique piece.
The context: the natural landscape and the built environment. The project begins from a very complex starting point in a chaotic urban and landscape context, in some parts even degraded. The zone of the intervention is a place, born in the end of 1800, to host a factory that stores explosive materials for civil uses (thought to be used in the marble caves nearby), then started the production of military munitions. At the end of the wars, the site became an object of allotment for touristic vocation activity of the place. The construction of the highway, that runs parallel to the coastline, has clamped the inhabited centre between the two axes and has interrupted the physical and visual relation with the agricultural areas situated behind the dwellings. The natural landscape and the built environment have become two distinct elements for the territory, without any possibility for a dialogue in between.
In the last years, the administration has been working on the realization of an urban park that will include the abandoned green areas all around, currently organized in a scattered way within the margins of the consolidated urban fabric. In this particular context the new villa is inserted, being part of a parcel situated in the margins of the perimeter of a protected landscape.
We believe that the park should become a reference for the landscape emergency for any kind of private intervention, especially if it is realized in its proximity. The villa, in this sense, is aligned to the foreseen indications in the plan of the realization of the park, considering that the realization of a dwelling was supported by a precise study of the external systems. This survey completes the best possible integration of the belonging portion of green with the dominant landscape context
, explains FABBRICANOVE
The distributive organization. The villa, whether inside or outside, privileges clear linear solutions, offering a comprehensible reading of its spaces. The building presents two overlapped volumes: one with a square plan, on the ground floor, with flat walkable roofing, the other one is rectangular in plan, on the first floor, with single pitched roof. The dark volume, jutting with a rectangular plan, is placed on the top of the bright volume with a square plan: the first one hosts the master bedroom, the second one includes the night zone reserved for guests, the kitchen, and the living room.
On the ground floor, the villa is open towards the garden and to the south‐west it hosts a patio protected by a pergola. On the south‐east part of the dwelling, there is the swimming pool. On the underground floor there is a five‐place parking garage and the technical and service rooms. The interior spaces has been conceived very carefully and this contributes to render the intervention in an elegant and precious way corresponding to a language that is not daring or lavish, but synchronized with delicate choices, soft in the preferred tonality and refined in the choice of materials and their further treatment. ”The precision of some of the works of Gio Ponti was an inspiration for us during the realization of this house, especially the interiors”, reveal the three architects.
The materials and the colours. The villa declares diverse chromatic materials and components that are always in harmony between each other, according to a complex drawing that brings back a warm Mediterranean atmosphere that can be accurately comprehended and enriched by the natural light. All the windows are wooden with natural finish, the same for the shutters to which a white lacquer finish has been added. The volume with square plan presents a plaster finish with ivory colour, ”trying to solve in the best way the contact with the ground and the relation with the pavement, bright travertine plates have been provided”, tells FABBRICANOVE. The volume with rectangular plan, elevated and sticking out, is clad with ceramic panels ”of a colour that tends to resemble the greyish shades of the Apuane Apls nearby”, they explained.
The interaction with the artisans. All the furniture are artisan and realized according to the drawings of FABBRICANOVE. For example the storage/library furniture on the ground floor in teak wood, to which the white steel staircase is supported and hence it becomes an unique object from both structural and visual point of view: some of the kick plates of the staircase coincide with the white profiles upon which the library is assembled.
The attention to the detail derives from a tight relation between designers and artisans, carpenters in particular, who appear as equal protagonists in a mutual contest that creates unique and original solutions for various custom‐made furniture in any intervention. This kind of design approach is a consolidated attitude of the three architects that re‐occurs in their other works in different scale. For example in the recent restoration of a loft in the centre of Florence (2015), or this of Villa Alma (2011) in Pieve di Santo Stefano (Arezzo, Italy), and, still in a different scale, in ”Luna 9” (2009), the storage wall resulted the winner in the competition ”La case del III Millennio”.
Project Details:
Location: Lucca, Italy
Area: 550 sqm
Architects: FABBRICANOVE
Photographs: Filippo Romano
