Architects: Enrico Sassi     Photography: Marcelo Villada OrtizSimone Bossi     Construction Period:  2021     Location:  Lugano, Switzerland

The Grotto della Roccia is a small historic building, which has been out of use for almost a century, set in the rock at the beginning of the Gandria path and overlooking Lake Lugano.

The building has three levels: a basement with a barrel-vaulted cellar excavated in the rock above which there is a small terrace, a ground floor with one side made of rock whose internal dimensions are 3.4 x 3.6 m and an upper floor of the same dimensions that was only accessible from the outside.

Even though the building was in poor condition and in a total state of disrepair, it was decided to conserve it by maintaining as much of its original appearance as possible but enlarging the external terrace and the internal part by connecting the two floors with a new staircase.

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