The presence of two architectural elements on the upper elevation highlights the construction: To the north, a volume in silvered glass houses the garage and the entrance hall of the house. To the south, resting on the angle of the ground floor façade, a white, opaque, low, square box-shaped volume protects and forms a porch area that extends the living space to the exterior.

These two elements, contrasting in terms of geometry and materials, rest on different parts of the garden which fills the entire plot, and reorganise the relationship of the land and its exisiting structures (stone walls, neighbouring buildings) with the landscape.

The absence of a visible construction, enhanced by the reflection of the mirrored body which punctuates the plot’s geometrical centre, contrasts with the generosity of the interior spaces which are discovered as one climbs down, revealing a typologically recognisable house.

Text provided by the architects.

The architectural proposal morphologically translates this dialectic between the original pre-existence state in which the buildings were found and preserved, and the new infrastructural and functional components that were added for their renewed functionality. Over time, the construction’s proximity to the ring road and the railway line and the new presence of the TIC building removed its original meaning, and it did not seem logical to remake a conventional pastiche of it, given that its function has also radically changed. It would be better to give the building a new functional and urban meaning, without losing its essence and stony condition.

A commitment was made to a highly sustainable reconstruction (without the use of heavy construction elements, concrete, minerals or ceramics) through very light and recyclable structural elements, namely wooden structures and light metal components. These do not jeopardize the structural safety of the existing building whose interior and exterior appearance reveal the nature and contemporaneity of the intervention, and it does so without renouncing to the memory of its original morphology, whose interpretation is maintained.

The building now resurfaces with a renewed scale and appearance, a prominent figure in the green mantle that extends throughout the naturalistic intervention of the TIC park. The abstraction and neutral treatment of the roofs and new equipment highlights and gives prominence to the only old elements that have been fully preserved over time: the stone walls of the building. The chapel, given its spatial potential and symbolic dimension, was transformed into a small auditorium, entirely lit from above through a glazed roof, which confers a charismatic monumentality to the space.

Text provided by the architect.

The library retains entirely the two 19th century façades, and the design proposes the construction of a new body with a different geometry from the urban fabric. This new object is assumedly an “extension”, standing out from the existing mass, to which it is physically linked by an incidental twist. The interior of the original house is cleared to allow for the full interpretation of its space. The ground floor contains the entrance lobby and the upper floor the informal reading room, which is characterized by a ceiling replicating a traditional kneading trough that refers back to the original space, and the space is lit through the existing openings.

The new volume places the children’s room on the ground floor and provides transparency onto the street. The basement houses storage space, a multipurpose room and the offices, and is lit from a courtyard fashioned in the plot of land. On the first floor, the informal reading room is a wide space, glazed to the outside and overlooking the new plaza by means of a triangular balcony. The trapezoidal object gains expression in the discontinuity of its vertical faces and the relationship with the free space created under the triangular overhangs. The particular character of its mass blends in with the surrounding texture thanks to the roughening of the concrete by manual chipping hammer, which confers a vernacular roughness on it.

The wall that encloses the body of the existing stone house and accommodates the intersection of the new object is in concrete, but with a new language. The elements adorning the entrance doors and the capping cornice are a Venturian reference which provides meaning to the relationship between the existing structure and the jarring geometry of the new intervention.

Text provided by the architect.