aAhouse
Home 私人住宅 aAhouse
Fine Margraf marbles for the renovation of an innovative private residence
aAhouse is an innovative project to renovate and transform a building of scarce value built in the Sicilian countryside, in Mazzarino, a town outside Caltanissetta, at the beginning of the '80s into a summer residence. The architects of the design team belong to the firm LFSN | Livio Ficarra Silvia Nardi Architetti.
It was born from the aspiration to transform an anonymous multi-storey building of little value into a modern and avant-garde building, in which natural materials, such as Margraf marble, enhance all the environments.
The spaces, previously organised into 3 floors, are now spread on a single level, formed by two perpendicular blocks, independent from each other but perceivable as a single building thanks to the "stitching" created by the connection in steel (whose materiality which differs from the main volumes of the building underscores the precariousness) and the large window that, opening one of the two interstitial fronts, reveals the inner hall.
The hut-shaped section, typical of rural architecture, is reinterpreted through the formal and material continuity of Margraf's Grigio Ducale marble that covers the entire villa. It is a "silent" architecture, where marble becomes an essential element to integrate with the landscape. Inside, Margraf's Giallo Ducale marble, with its typical golden colour, rhythmically marks and embellishes the various rooms.
Thanks to the rigid modularity of full and empty spaces, accentuated by the Margraf marble cladding, the portico creates a sober and essential space, whose geometry, overturned on the horizontal plane, becomes the generating principle of the external layout. The archetypal form stems from direct research on the principles of living and its rituals: the result of a study centred not on the simplicity of architecture, but on its essence, not on the proportional relationship of the parts, but on the intimate relationship between space, material and inhabitant.
aAhouse is a stereometric and porous building that establishes perceptual, chromatic and spatial relationships with the place it "inhabits". It is a building that respects the "family" of figures of the Mediterranean construction tradition. A rocky concretion that, with its position, defines the hierarchies of the surrounding landscape and declares the principles of living. It is a "silent" architecture, capable of blending into the landscape as if it had always been part of it, enhancing and characterising it, while rejecting compromises and mannerisms.
Name of project: aAhouse
Location: Mazzarino (CL)
Design Team: Livio Ficarra, Silvia Nardi, Giuseppe Cataldo, Andrea Sigona
Client: private
Built-up area: 197 sqm
Marbles used: external flooring and internal cladding in Margraf Giallo Ducale and Grigio Ducale
Contractor: Edil Orion
Structural works consultant: Mr. Giuseppe Cristaldi
Photos: Santo Eduardo Di Miceli