Structure workplace Studio Wok has remodeled a disused technical constructing at QuadroDesign’s headquarters in northern Italy into an artist residency, with residing and sleeping areas accommodated in its unusually formed roof.
Milan-based Studio Wok redesigned the headquarters for tapware model QuadroDesign in 2022 and was subsequently requested to supervise this second section, overhauling an space of the encompassing grounds.
The centrepiece of the undertaking is a small cabin, initially used to deal with electrical infrastructure for the manufacturing facility positioned close to Lake Orta in Italy’s Piedmont area.
Enrico and Elena Magistro, who inherited the corporate from their mother and father, wished the constructing to echo the identical pared-back model and impartial palette used for his or her redesigned places of work and showroom.
Positioned in a nook of the positioning, surrounded by greenery, the cabin now accommodates a versatile area that can be utilized for business occasions in addition to for internet hosting resident artists.
The unique form and construction of the cabin had been retained however its dimensions of simply three by 9.5 metres had been unsuited to the proposed home features.
Studio Wok proposed extending upwards into the prevailing roof area, which reaches a peak of eight metres and was possible created to permit warmth from electrical equipment to flee by a window on the apex.
“The interior area, slender and developed in peak, isn’t ordinary for a house – in actual fact, it was designed to accommodate different features,” architect Nicola Brenna advised Dezeen.
“It was very stimulating to implement a ‘domestication’ course of and make it appropriate for residing.”
The cabin, which was most lately used as a warehouse and gear shed, was stripped again and inner partitions had been eliminated to create a flexible open-plan room on the bottom flooring.
Openings on this degree had been reorganised and enlarged to create an enhanced reference to the outside, notably when the newly put in sliding metallic doorways are retracted.
Constructed-in joinery alongside the room’s rear wall helps a settee and incorporates two steps that join with a metallic staircase resulting in the higher ranges.
A wall of cupboards on the reverse finish of the area conceals a door resulting in a bathe room and WC that was added so the constructing can be utilized for momentary lodging.
The 2 mezzanine ranges include extra intimate areas together with a sleeping space positioned on a newly constructed picket platform above the kitchen.
A second set of stairs results in a small seating space, housed in an current concrete walkway close to the highest of the roof. Right here, Studio Wok put in a easy picket bench that receives pure illumination from the close by window.
All through the inside, the studio utilised a minimal materials palette to create what the founders describe as an “virtually sacred area”.
A collection of out of doors areas linked by a concrete slab was launched as a part of the undertaking, with a pergola positioned perpendicular to the cabin housing an out of doors kitchen and eating space.
The pergola is constructed from tubular galvanised metal profiles, with 5 spans spaced 2.6 metres aside from each other. Two of the spans are coated with a light-weight corrugated metallic roof that shelters the custom-made stone and metallic kitchen counter.
The ultimate intervention is a small pool that’s partly sunken into the earth. The monolithic building is clad with anthracite stone to echo the amount of the kitchen and create a seating space that additionally defines the boundary of the landscaped zone.
Studio Wok was based in 2012 by Brenna along with Marcello Bondavalli and Carlo Alberto Tagliabue. The studio adopts an artisanal strategy to its tasks, crafting options that reply to every website’s distinctive setting, materiality, mild and ambiance.
Earlier works by Studio Wok embody a bakery and wine bar in Milan that includes a matcha-green counter and the transformation of a uncared for barn close to Verona into a rustic residence.
The pictures is by Marcello Mariana.
