[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”top-to-bottom”]Home and atelier for an artist, Castelrotto, Italy by MoDus Architects[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
© Niccolo` Morgan Gandolfi
What makes a design original one is not adding but removing from the form and thus, evoke curiosity. Casa – Atelier per artista, in Castelrotto, Italy by MoDus Architects is such a project where two imaginary bodies of the traditional house volume are sliced in two perpendicular directions leaving us with the exposed cuts. Just like you see the seeds of a cut fruit the facade of this building is revealing something from the inside! What is left is an unusual form which, though, resembles the surrounding in many ways.
© MoDus Architects
Viewed from two opposite angles we recognize two different identities of the building: the first one, as a part of the town; and the second, as a part of the mountain and the sloped terrain. The materials used, and the construction principles connect the structure to the building tradition of the region while at the same time the interesting “V” pattern with its sharp edges reminds of the mountain tops nearby.
© Hannes Meraner
The cut-out concept creates another transformation of the original form. The lower parts of the roof slopes are left at the inner sides (East and West). In that way, at the West terrace is created a smaller scale environment used as an inner yard and main entrance where the people are invited through their own dimension. Here, yet another time we find two opposite concepts, that of the small human scale and that of the monumental landscape scale, which is presented at the front side.
© Matteo Scagnol
The design gives the possibility for the material to develop traces of time as the wood is fully exposed to the weather conditions. Further more, the artist living in the house will gradually engrave his own art in the wooden façade and thus, tell a story. I find this house interesting because despite of its abstract form, it still connects well with the surrounding in a curious way. You are there, looking at something original but the notion of home, or the familiar, is somehow still present.
