C+V house

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Project details

• Project Name: C+V house
• Client: Francesco Capece, Venanzi Ilenia
• Project Type: single house
• Principal Designer/s: Giovanni Vaccarini
• Contractor/s: Di Ferdinando Michele
• Date of commencement of project: 2004
• Date of completion of project: 2005
• Location of site: Teramo, Italy
• Site Area: 450 sq. m
• Built-up Area: 280 sq. m
• Cost of Construction/Execution: 300,000 Euro

Words from the designer

"House Capece-Venanzi, is a suburban house for a young couple.

Situated in the diffuse Conurbazione of the Adriatic coast, between Ascoli and Pescara, the house is built on an "intermediate" area -- between the plain and a hill. An area that was thitherto seen as being a place unworthy of being built upon."

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

"Located in the midst of intertwined single-family houses on two levels and a hill, the site is tight, and green -- covered in natural or 'spontaneous' vegetation.

The idea was to construct a building with an 'inverse' guideline.

Instead of being oriented towards the city, looking outward from the hill; the house is completely turned towards the hill -- the hill that acts as a rising 'green sea' on which the house shows itself."

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

"The planning of the house can be defined across three levels:

• The lowest level is underground. An inner patio acts as the central element around which the spaces are organized; creating an interaction between the buried spaces, roof-garden area, and the suspended volume of the upper level (the ground level).
• The ground floor is the part of the building that holds all levels together. Acting as the border between the uncovered-roof-garden and the covered-day-area, metal (vetrata wall) and glulam surfaces wrap around the spaces; connecting the ground level with the upper one.
• The first floor consists of various rooms and private spaces typical of a house (bath/sauna, study etc.)"

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

"The volumes of the house are metaphors - to the pieces in a game of tetris, albeit at a much larger scale.

The base is covered in stone, juxtaposed with the volume covered in white plaster; the base 'is cut' on the forehead in the west, by a vetrata wall, all the way upto its height; while the overlapping volume is intersected by a wedge of the free shaped circular hall."

Photographs:

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Photographs:

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Photographs:

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Photograph by Alessandro Ciampi.

Credits

• Text by Giovanni Vaccarini
• Photographs by Alessandro Ciampi
• Compiled and Edited by Varun M Ajani