Reinventing the country house

The creative process pursued by Elasticospa — Stefano Pujatti and Alberto Del Maschio's Elastico3 in the design of the Country House at Villorba di Sacile, Pordenone, Italy comes across as an investigation into a building typology.

The project arose from the demolition and reconstruction of half of a rural building. The decision to demolish part of the building was determined by its ruined condition, while its reconstruction, with a possible increase in floor area, was decreed by the local town plan as conservational in nature. Therefore, the architects had to reconsider the building's typology. Their capacity for reinvention is made evident by the portion of the building that remained — the new section is a compact and rectilinear construction, its roof composed of two symmetrical pitches.

The external cladding in fair-faced brickwork evokes classic rural construction, and building upon the triage technique that is characteristic of rural buildings in Friuli, creates a double skin in the volume's south elevation. Two main walls run parallel to each other, and the grid of bricks partly hides the large internal glazed openings, modulating the light like a continuous brise-soleil. Thanks to this double-cladding and the use of photo-voltaic panels, the building consumes less energy than it produces, demonstrating how good results in terms of energy efficiency can be achieved without having to make radical ecological decisions or introduce invasive high-tech devices.

Laying some of the bricks head on and allowing them to project in some areas of the brick wall, the cladding creates a chiaroscuro effect and provides continuity with the rest of the building, recreating the layout and size of traditional windows while reinterpreting more freely the openings of the porticoes and barns on the east side, allowing glimpses of the large double-height space of the internal staircase, the central element of the design, a deliberate feature of the space, completely extraneous to the culture of rural residential buildings.

This entirely new aspect of the Country House is revealed in the language and circulation of the internal spaces, which result from the intersection of a number of cylinders of different height and diameter that can be perceived at various levels of the house. The articulation of the internal space, the exposed concrete that shapes it and the complex articulation accentuated by the light pouring in through large windows highlight the difference between the outside and inside, causing one to forget the rural surroundings. Paola Pellegrini

Elaticospa and Elastico3: Country House
Architects: ELASTICOSPA – Stefano Pujatti Architetti + ELASTICO3 di Alberto Del Maschio
Project group: Stefano Pujatti, Alberto Del Maschio, Valeria Brero, Corrado Curti, Daniele Almondo, Marco Burigana
Structural engineers: INTE.CO. s.r.l. Ing Della Tofola + Ing.Perin
Electrical engineering: TSERVICE
Mechanical engineering: TSERVICE
Work supervision: Stefano Pujatti, Alberto Del Maschio
Client: Private
Project area: 1,750 square metres
Built area: 525 square metres
Project: 2006-2008
Construction: 2009-2011