Nothing but a four metre-high door penetrates the plain facade of this house in northern Italy.
The single-storey residence, completed by Italian architects Archiplan back in 2007, is located in a small village in the Po Valley.
Rooms of the house wrap around a central courtyard, where glass walls offer direct views across from the living room to a bedroom and bathroom.
Sliding glass doors open this living room and kitchen out to a decked terrace, which extends across a narrow channel of pebbles that surrounds the building.
Other popular Italian houses featured on Dezeen include one with a wooden roof terrace and another in a converted tannery - see more projects in Italy here.
Photography is by Federica Bottoli and Marianna Mele.
Here are some more details from the architects:
Private residence, Sarginesco (MN)
2007/2005 completion/design project
The site is located at a point between the square and the church of a small village in the Po Valley.
The new building develops around a small inner courtyard. The front facing the street has no openings apart from the main entrance. Four metres high, it underlines the idea of the threshold conceived as an element of transit and delimitation that separates an outer world, without rules or qualities, from a controlled artificial one.
The walls of the building have no domestic openings, establishing a selective relationship with the surroundings and providing a visual rapport with the only side with vegetation, to the east of the building, and with the inner courtyard.
Mafia neighborhood ?
I still like it
Just a bunch of ‘politically correct’ architectural features put together (Corten, hidden lighting sources, tiny zen stone garden, boring white interiors, no windows Adjaye-like etc…) Rest in peace Italian art and creativity! This saddens me.
'It is easier to criticize than formulate an idea'
it is easier to use these politically correct ideas than to critisize. And architecture is not about ideas. Thats the problem today.
Agreed. There seems to be little pleasure in how it is made and the cumulative effect of the whole.
A windowless house in the Po Valley. One can only wonder which Mafia family the client belongs to …
I assume the inspiration was the Roman house of old that is ancient Roma which was closed to the street and open in the center with an atrium. Without plans one can't gauge how far this parti was taken. Otherwise, very finely detailed.
wonderful answer to the Berlusconi´s Italy!
A relatively windowless environment-denying box in what appears to be the bucolic lush green landscape of a small Italian village………….go figure?
I can see the point about 'mafia family' I thought the 'anni di piombo' ( the 70's with the Italian 'brigate rosse' and the German 'red army' were over. Perhaps it has to do less with security issues and more with an aesthetic point. Looks more like a sculpture than a house.
Front facade is extremely powerful – the rear less so…perhaps the one liner is hard to carry throughout the project – but it should have inspired equal discipline to the rear – possibly and all glass facade with a solid door.
Nice interior, but there's just too many shoebox houses featured on this site.
See the video….the house is very small….but usefull!
http://youtu.be/Rn5YVoeVUi4