A big house in the heart of Rome, in a modern building built in 1951 by engineer Cesare Pascoletti, who left a deep trace in this city.Our office Officinaleonardo, had several times the opportunity to operate inside this creation, with many different issues and results, mirror of their owners soul.

The project is inspired by the work of the able and innovative Dutch architect Ben van Berkel , author of the Moebius Haus, a continuous reinforced concrete structure , a poetic marriage of the surrounding landscape and its clever designed wooden parts . We imagined a strong presence of a reinforced concrete wall that acts as a support for a bridge leading us on the green of Villa Torlonia ; this wall run through the house , it twists and blends, following clear geometries that recall rationalism. The wall keep running shaping a suspended glass walkway that leads to the sleeping area, its most intimate and secret part is an access to the bedrooms and bathrooms a suspended, fuchsia colored space, enveloping , digesting and annihilating everything. The cement has a good contrasts with the green of the park , which is reflected in the front walls of the hall where the second theme emerges: the organic nature and green surfaces in the articulation of volumes.

We committed the definition of this theme to  Officina Alviti , two masters in the use of resins , two sculptors and artists, they have been able to interpret our directions in a wise and measured way. They got started from our kitchen sketches of olive leaves scattered by the wind where we had preserved, even by the will of the customer, a trace of the old paving, a sort of positive and negative we can also find on the horizontal surfaces of concrete. The kitchen, made by craftsman Luca Scarselletta , is cubist play of volumes articulated in the space, evoking an abstract idea of a tree trunk, then divided into volumes of leaves and branches , white or lime green colored zebra wood containers, plates and glasses , all with a wide range of different openings . Officina Alviti again for the fitness bath, gives shape to a sketch of a cloud where you can see abstract shapes of autumn leaves blowing in the wind, it looks to be suspended in midair. Abstract references to the nature continue in the hall, the brush strokes of green textured glimpse of a warping of forest foliage, until everything return to the main concrete wall, leaving a footprint in its random final section.

The house is also a complex and precise self-propelled machine , even if it will never give this impression to an entering guest, but it is in the deepest meaning of the word. Carrying on a theme close to Officinaleonardo , entire walls of the house open and flow, driven by robotic mechanisms made by Bticino. They are controlled by sophisticated home automation , which governs every action and every moment of the day or season of the year. A large engraved wooden wall, of about 10 sqm, flows into the hall and hides behind a new cabinet making itself completely invisible. It is possible using guides hidden in the ceiling ; so, it has a contoured shape by closed, enveloping the suspended glass corridor. Is a metaphysic configuration where, walking some steps you penetrates the door itself , to access to the glass volume , here transparency leads you to the living room. Along the same concrete wall it opens by tilting upwards , hidden from the joints of the wall, connecting to another room , a room that serves as an extra study room, guest bedroom or amusement , and thus expanding both physically and visually already a spacious lounge. A spectacular goal from Alagia Ltd engineering who quietly and quickly creates a small dynamic performance within the home 

But the whole ceiling itself is a great feat of engineering , being a single system of radiant panels for a perfect climate for both winter and summer , and receiving at the same time all the systems: water, electricity and home automation. This is motivated by the will to preserve the valuable mahogany parquet flooring original from the '50s ; what we added are the alarm systems and public address or audio hi- fi / home cinema and engines of tents and other ( ceiling projector and screen film ) . In the baths there is a new application developed by Officinaleonardo:  a glazed pattern of reflective steel rings between two sheets of thermic  radiant glass, obtaining as result the occultation of the bathroom outside both day and night through the " binacular effect " theorized by our study, and at the same time heating the environment coupled with innovative radiators ATH. So even in the bathrooms a mix of new technologies: teak cladded radiant floor, manufactured with nanotechnology which are deactivated when illuminated by the sun , barrels of sandal wood  producing sounds and aromas that mingle with those generated from barrisol rgb ceiling  system, both to soften the sound of the water in the large tub hot tub. Everything governed by invisible  home automation.

In the studio , workplace of the music critic and journalist Fuzz Fuzz , we meet the geometry of the organic part of the building , overlooking a large hammered iron compact disc library, painted and prepared according to the Blindofer group, a specialized company in iron works for interiors. Large semicircular areas that flow and overlap, thus expanding the storage capacity of the music archive. Each oparation is made in house by the care and skill of workers who Officinaleonardo has over the years selected for their most important works , giving continuity to the theme of the house , affected  by the sequence of the "urban" spaces effect.

Effect generated by multiple visual prespectives from inside and outside and the use of light striking into the house, all issues we already  have tested elsewhere.

 To underline then the effect of " villa ", feeling to be out of town, large glazed views and reflections on the green. A lighting system that simulate sunlight or sunset exploiting a mix of neon lights. There is also a cloud of rgb neon above the barrisol in the living room , a rgb led lighting under steps and hidden in the shelves of the library, such as geometrized branches they draw lines as those ones in the kitchen bringing light from the floor of the corridor in the sleeping area,  to the concrete wall.

The concrete Wall put an end to a “8 shaped” path  between the rooms of this residence taking us back to the entrance where a pillar coated in a "guepierre" style red leather seems to be a soft and sensual obstacle, a semicircular dressing room covered in leather or rope that reflected in a mirror , reminds the circularity of the column.