This project stems from the need to restore this building from the point of view of energy efficiency and comfort; it’s located in the central Piazza Dante of Lugano: perhaps the most central square, certainly a piece of the city where demolitions in the 60s and 70s they have erased the historical fabric.

 

From these assumptions the idea was born of redesigning the entire facade, looking for an architectural language that would not resume the patterns of the past in a superficial way, but took inspiration from them.

The “chessboard” that characterizes the building plays with light, and the different inclination of the sheet metal elements propose lights and shadows that can be found in historic buildings, such as the arcade or the eaves, here deliberately emphasized.

Technically, the coating has been designed to allow the installation of all the new installations, guaranteeing tenants the possibility of continuing to use their spaces during all renovation works.

A steep slope located halfway up Monte Brè, which overlooks Lugano and the mountains that surround its territory; the need to build not a house, but one’s own home, and also one’s own Studio: an opportunity for an architect to transform a project into a laboratory in which to work on the themes developed up to that point and add those that were not possible elaborate on.

 

The basic idea is to superimpose three elements with markedly horizontal development: each with its own formal expression, but all with the same architectural language.

Transparency, pilotis and glass on the ground floor, with the travertine wall facing upstream; full horizontal volumes that frame the passage to the first floor; and a pitched element, angular, on the third floor, the one dedicated to the Studio, as if it were an element resting on the roof.