Embracing materiality, the Mediterranean landscape, and the suggestions of a 17th-century ruin that invites contemporary design: these are the factors that have guided the renovation of a farmhouse (masseria) in Carovigno , in the hills of  Valle d’Itria, overlooking the sea of Apulia. The peculiarity of the programme, positioning halfway between tourism and domesticity, has added value to the intervention: creating a holiday home for large family groups, or company retreats.

The Valari firm has therefore developed a renovation project involving the 500-square-meter surface of  the two storeys of  Masseria Belvedere, articulated into 8 double bed rooms and 8 bathrooms to be extended with a yoga room, a games room and a cocktail bar. The living area consisting of a kitchen, a dining room and a living room, is hosted in a single space on the ground floor, articulating into two different levels following the rocky slope, and extending towards the outside, with an infinity pool that connects it to the sea horizon; next to it, a solarium, a fireplace and an outdoor kitchen, a second dining and sitting area; another terrace with a jacuzzi is located on the first floor.

Materia, therefore, has stood out as the strongest guideline for the whole intervention, thorugh a selection that stressed a strong connection to local culture and nature, and aimed to establish a point-by-point dialogue with the existing architecture: sometimes in terms of contrast, by emphasizing its textures, tones and volumes, some other times in terms of harmonization, by adding more neutral surfaces.
The existing building represented in itself a real essay in material complexity: the rock floors, the stone walls and the vaults, the different types of stone, mortar, their states of conservation state and types of installations, historical pieces and recent pieces, reclaimed pieces and more precious pieces. Where this complexity was not given absolute priority, different materials have intervened, such as  micro-cements and plasters bleached oak wood for the fixed furnishings, but also Arpicena marble and warm-toned décor and fabrics, the brass of indoor lights, the dark steel of window fixtures and coloured metal of the outdoor furniture.

Then comes the dialogue of shapes and geometries, where a horizontal dimension has been emphasized to connect the interior to the garden, and the garden to the valley and the sea: the alignment of  the kitchen and dining table surfaces, the bar table on the first floor, the water surfaces of the tub and the pool, anticipating the sea and the horizon.