Casa Venegono

Barozzi + Riva designs two-family house in a wood near Varese, Italy, that projects into the vegetation, with which they share the cladding and that enters into white interiors lit by large windows.

Marble matters– exploring Carrara’s legacy

Sixteen young international architects took part in two intensive training days in Carrara, organized by FUM Academy and YACademy, featuring visits to the marble quarries and a design workshop focused on the use of the material.

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Building in a wood of conifers and broad-leafed trees while preserving the natural environment; constructing on a slanting plane without violating the orography; and developing two separate houses with a shared entrance.

These are the three principles behind Stefano Riva and Marco and Massimo Bigozzi’s design for two private houses in the woods near Varese.

The site sits in a residential fabric of eclectic buildings with parks and gardens; and the area features a strong presence of nature and an orography descending in a gradient from east to west. The whole programme was shaped by these conditions.

The surroundings are extremely expressive both spatially and naturally thanks to tall-trunk trees that vary the intensity of the light, aspects taken into consideration as points of local contact and dialogue.

Higher up, the entrance zone contains a base on which the two houses develop, projected into the woods, specularly: the ground floor containing the communal areas (living room and kitchen) with the sleeping zones on the other floors.

The “suspended house” to the north is constructed around a hanging patio that unites the outdoor space and the two inhabited zones (social and private); the “house on pillars”, a suspended volume immersed in the vegetation, generates a space below from which a ramp connects land and sky, the social space with the more private zone.