Aldo Celoria

Trapanese House . Castel San Pietro

Aldo Celoria . + archello

The site for this house is a hilly area in Castel San Pietro. This low residential zone is characterised by the presence of terraced vineyards facing the landscape.
The design starts with the idea of a main way that goes through the house connecting the road with the hill (the view with the slope).

The house is imagined as a crystal, capturing the light and transforming it into the domestic everyday life’s space.
The intention is to create a light volume in a continuous relation with the outside, like a kaleidoscope play of lights and reflections.
The decision to use polycarbonate slabs for the outside coating emphasizes this idea of continuous and changeable relationship with light. It is probably right to say that this is a project of light, a luminous connection between inside and outside.
The abstract surface of polycarbonate is ideal because it is always changing colour, reflecting the sky shades and the tones of the surroundings.
The plan and the section of the house is associated with the idea of a chromosome intended as a double intersection: common spaces with private spaces. In this way, simultaneously, the family’s activities make the whole volume living. This intersection is visible in the red ramp that connects the street level with the porch, crossing the heart of the house.
The stairs are put in the centre, creating a hinge of rotation from which all the different spaces are organised on different levels. This double height void also connects the earth with the sky.
The structural idea is that the perimeter of the upper floor works as a suspended Vierendeel beam. The forces run down to the ground in four walls put asymmetrically in the space. The beam is also moving in section following the different room levels. The windows pursue this structural idea. The voids are the drawing of the structural functioning of the beam. During daylight the rhythm of the windows in the façade is always changing because of reflections and shades. At night the house is transformed into a magic lantern.