Located in the hills close to Vicenza, this country house is the result of restoration and extension work on an existing building that has been regenerated in keeping with its surroundings.
- Client
- Private
- Year
- 2002
- Status
- Completed
- Size
- 1100 sqm
- Team
-
project Flavio Albanese —
Flavio Albanese
founder & partnerFlavio Albanese (1951), is founder and president of ASA studio albanese. He is a self-educated designer, by combining his passion for contemporary art with the practical experience of an artisan-architect. Having come into contact with Carlo Scarpa, he learns from him to avoid an “a priori” approach to design, adapting on a case-by-case basis to the occasions, themes and contexts. He has held courses at the École Polytechinique Fédérale in Lausanne and at the Art Institute in Chicago (1980), at Yale University (1983), at the University of Architecture in Delft (2005), at the University of Florida (2006), at the Fundacion Proa de Buenos Aires (2008) and frequently at the most important Italian universities. He has also held two workshops at the international summer school of the Architecture School in Venice in 2009 and 2010. He was a member of the Confindustria Vicenza committee from 1998 to 2001, the Domus Academy Scientific Committee (2004-2005) and the MIart Committee of Honour (2009 and 2010), director of the Officina del Porto di Palermo (2006-2008), vice president of the Andrea Palladio Architecture Firms International Centre (2011-2015) and president of the Fondazione Teatro Comunale Città di Vicenza (2010-2016). From 2007 to 2010 he was asked to head Domus, the prestigious international architecture, design and contemporary art magazine. Active since 1971, in 1987 he founds with his brother Franco ASA studio albanese. The studio's projects were published by the most most important architecture and design magazines: the Neores project was selected for the Mies van der Rohe Foundation European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture (2003), and ASA studio albanese took part in Venice's Architecture Biennial in 2004 and 2006. Flavio is an avid reader and bibliophile (his library, which is open to the rest of the firm, contains more than 15.000 volumes) and he is a connoisseur and collector of contemporary art.
Franco Albanese
partner, CEO & executive directorFranco Albanese (Vicenza, 1958) has worked in the world of architecture and design since 1976. He graduated from the Architecture School in Venice in 1986 and the year after he founded ASA studio albanese in Vicenza with his brother Flavio. Since then he has been the firm's CEO and Technical Manager, and this role has led him to playing his part in the creation, development and execution of the most important projects. As designer and operations manager he oversaw: the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Padua (1997); “Neores”, the production site and headquarters of Sinv Spa in Schio, Vicenza, (selected for the Mies van der Rohe Foundation European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture in 2003); the project for the Town Hall of the Municipality of Grumolo delle Abbadesse, Vicenza (1999); “Morimondo 17”, the industrial reconversion of the Sinv spa premises in Milan (2000); the headquarters of Margraf in Chiampo, in the province of Vicenza (2006). He also supervised the “Rocco Forte Verdura Resort” in Sciacca, in Sicily (2005), the expansion of Pantelleria Airport (2006), the new Rinascente in Palermo (2007), the reconversion project of Lindower 22 in Berlin (2011), the Hybrid Tower project in Mestre-Venice (2012), the Fope headquarter extension project in Vicenza (2016). In recent years, he has increasingly concentrated on reconverting urban industrial areas, which has become a key theme of ASA studio albanese's philosophy. In recent years, he has increasingly concentrated on reconverting urban industrial areas, which has become a key theme of ASA studio albanese's philosophy.
project manager Giuseppe Dal MolinGiuseppe Dal Molin
project managerGiuseppe, who prefers to be called Pino, graduated from the Iuav Architecture School in Venice in 1993. A year later, together with Antonio Paolin and Giuseppe Pianezzola, he won a bid to design the new library in Marostica, a project that won the Town of Oderzo architecture award in 1999. He joined ASA studio albanese in 1994 and, notwithstanding a few hiccups, he has remained with us to this day. Pino deals with projects in the field of residential and hotel architecture in particular, and in interior design. For ASA studio albanese he personally worked on the Rocco Forte Verdura Resort in Sciacca, one of the firm's main projects. In 2006 he founded the Corte dei Roda design studio with Giuseppe Pianezzola and other co-workers. One of his favourite novels is "The Simulacra" by Philip K. Dick, and in another life the architect would have liked to have been a farmer.
- Images credits
- Andrea Garzotto
The concept intends to ensure the building is in keeping with the largely unspoilt surrounding landscape of the valley, taking advantage of the different levels of the hillside. The main body consists of two communicating spaces with different characteristics, whose floors that differ by approximately 70 cm in height reflect the dynamics of the different levels in the natural surroundings in the interiors. The floor of the building consists of a stone layer that joins together the various spaces. The ground floor, partly underground due to the slope of the hill, looks out onto the various levels, with a large panoramic window by the swimming pool.