Itaca House
Itaca House is the refurbishment of an apartment located in the Casal Palocco neighborhood, Rome, within the Le terrazze complex built in the 1970s. An example in Rome of brutalist architecture and the attempt to create a true experiment in architectural mixite.
The apartment is located on a high floor of a chamfered block, with a large exposure on three sides. The actual state of the apartment presented a "labyrinth" of environments, with a sequence of very small rooms without any interest and impossible to adapt to contemporary living habits.
The project is the materialization of the architecture with which Studio Strato feel comfortable and with which I like to move forward: simple geometric figures that in their spatial composition create complex environments, in which construction, together with material codes, ends up defining and filling in the spaces, blurring their limits. The square is the central space of the residence, which brings together the kitchen, the living room and the dining room, and freer spaces for the library, reading area, play area ... It is the space that is intended to be the heart of the house. This figure is inserted by knocking down the walls of the house, leaving the structure of the pillars and beams exposed. This structural line suggests a subdivision of the apartment. The separations between the rooms do not occur through walls and they are not "hermetic": the only existing wall does not reach the ceiling but allows a glimpse of the rooms on the other side through a glass crowning. The subdivision of the rooms takes place through the furnishings of the house and the partitions /frames in wood or iron and striped glass. The sliding frames allow you to enlarge and compress the space, creating privacy areas for work or yoga or making these spaces participate in the entire living area. The same blue bathroom is not "closed" but articulated through a path that defines its different functions.
Given the light spatial distribution, the materials come into play to multiply the sensations and increase the spatial complexity. The main surface of the apartment is made with a single cast of grit with a cocciopesto base, the "soft" areas that correspond to the studio and the yoga area are covered with coconut flooring. The sleeping area has a floor made with large wooden boards. In the two bathrooms, the aim was to obtain a totally immersive effect so that the floor material was used for both the cladding and the ceilings.
Much of the furniture has been designed for this project, such as the wardrobes covered in iron sheet, the kitchen revisited in iron and lava stone or the marble washbasin.
