Other projects

“CASA MIA”
Remodelling of an apartment in Via Barbaroux, Turin
Design: MARC
Designers: Michele Bonino, Subhash Mukerjee
Collaborators: Mi-jung Kim, Cristina Marietta, Tommaso Rocca
100 sq.m
Principal: private
Photo: Beppe Giardino

Concept
This design tackles a dilemma. an apartment in a late 17th Century building requires complete remodelling: so can it be given the warmth that the family wants, without sacrificing clarity of distribution? Can it be made welcoming without compromising on flexibility and rationality? Perhaps, if we avoid getting boxed in by rigid preconceptions of form. The design aims to attenuate the usual contrast between new architecture and historic living space by clearing the original three large rooms of all recent renovation work, to reveal the richly decorated wood ceilings. It concentrates a range of new functions within three dense volumes of different heights, thus leaving the other rooms open. The volumes are shaped by the existing walls rather than appearing as extraneous items: all the walls are treated in the same way without recourse to expedients to promote continuity between old and new.