Monastery guesthouse

The new Guesthouse-Hermitage designed by Edoardo Milesi & Archos is located in the premises of the Monastery Complex of Siloe, in the province of Grosseto, Italy, which covers a network of hill trails with a surface of 38,000 square metres.

  The project comprises five housing units, which are used as guesthouses external to the Monastery, used to accommodate occasional guests of the community of Silo. Immersed in the natural conformation of the ground, they have been built without changing the natural surroundings, while experimenting a new type of sustainable housing. Each of the housing cells, which are complementary to the structure of the monastery, includes a bedroom with a kitchenette, a bathroom, a balcony on the north side and a loggia on the south side, and meets the requirements set by the law on accessibility. The building, which has a supporting structure with breathable wooden cladding walls, is very old, naturally airy and fully meets the bio-architecture criteria for using natural, completely recyclable materials.

The roofs, the lofts and the walls are made of wood, are breathable and highly insulated; the ventilated covering is made of zinc and titanium, while the exposed wood is naturally oxidized larch. The module has been designed with most of the window area on the north/west side, so as to create diffused light, while the south side is made of walls with a smaller window area protected by eaves. The external walls, the floors, the doors and the windows are made of larch wood.

Guesthouse-Hermitage Siloe, Località Poggio Tribolone – Cinigiano, Grosseto, Italy
Program: guesthouse
Architects: Edoardo Milesi & Archos
Collaborators: Paolo Abbadini, Davide Fagiani, Paolo Vimercati
Client: Monastic Community of Siloe
Contractor: Euro Costruzioni 1961 Il benessere dell’abitato
Completion: 2016