A house for a doctor in the heart of Milan

The progressive commodification of the domestic space as a consumer good, the reduction of the surface area and the standardization of furnishing have greatly influenced the capacity of our homes to be individual and representative spaces of those who live there. In order to avoid the idea of a sterile and generic space, the design of House for a Doctor was born from the customer, his personality and his historical memory. The Milanese studio casatibuonsante architects creates a real inventory of objects and furnishings of his family in order to interpret them and give everyone their space and meaning inside the new house.

The project redistributes the relationships between the domestic spaces of representation and intimacy by organizing the rooms of the house around the central space of the living room, which becomes its heart once freed from the pre-existing perimeter walls. A continuous, double furnishing system acts as a bookcase and display case towards the living room and as a storage unit and wardrobe towards the corridor, transforming itself into a real diaphragm between the living room and the rest of the house. "The large bookcase takes up the idea of the urban front, like an arcade around a square rule and establishes the character and uses of the large central room" the designers claim.

The portico-bookcase, stained in cardinal red, becomes the fixed scene of the house, inhabited by the objects most dear to those who live there: wooden furniture, sideboards, crucifixes, paintings, portraits, a pendulum clock, antique books, small reproductions of sculptures and half busts of ancient thinkers and philosophers. Along the corridor full-height mirrors double the space allowing natural light to penetrate the darkest areas of the house.

Even the facilities are redesigned and given a new look. The kitchen is organized around a steel island volume where you can work or gather for moments of conviviality, while the two bathrooms are covered with opaque ceramic mosaic tiles. The bright colors that characterize them also paint the doors and envelope the environment.