Lúcio Rosato: House overlooking the sea

At Riparo Bardella di Ortona (Chieti), a building parallel to the sea blends into the landscape and open up views towards the distant horizon. From a text by Lucio Rosato. Photography: Tommy Della Frana, Pasquale Carfagna, Lúcio Rosato

The house overlooking the sea creates a path resting on a slope parallel to the coastline by means of a rhythmic sequence of empty spaces and built elements. The house, situated high above the sea, opens itself lightly to the coastal breezes, nestling itself into the landscape, building a new prospective towards the horizon far away. The house emerges from the earth yet, at the same time, seems to bury itself within searching for an area of temporary determination. Thus the project is part of the genis loci, part of the landscape, as though its vanishing points had shaped its design.

The manor house occupies the lower part of the monolithic block, but the real life of the house is on the roof, a ship's deck, where the long swimming pool is immersed in white stone from which emerges the white, steel loggia, the crow's nest; its lightness is balanced, to the south, by the solid, white cube of the guest-house.

If the natural configuration of the land is preserved, as well as the variegated, spontaneous Mediterranean vegetation, marked by rows of old olive trees - random harmony - the project tries to be a sign of natural artifice.

House overlooking the sea, single-family residence

Design:
Lúcio Rosato
Design team:
Lúcio Rosato,
Ermano Flacco,
Sandro Antonucci, engineer.

Project site:
Riparo Bardella di Ortona (Chieti)

Construction phase:
2000/2006

Photography:
Tommy Della Frana, Pasquale Carfagna
Lúcio Rosato