Ca’Giovanni: An Architect’s (Light) Renovation of His Nice-Grandfather’s Work

Once we reached out to Italian architect Alfredo Vanotti of EV + A Lab about this cosy stone home within the Italian countryside, we didn’t anticipate how deep the architect’s tether to the place would go.

“The constructing had been used up to now as a steady and warehouse on the bottom flooring and a barn and storage room on the primary flooring,” Alfredo responded. “It belonged to my great-grandfather who toiled to construct it, labored on all of it his life. It was the image of the livelihood of your entire giant household. I couldn’t erase the historical past; I had no proper to take action. I needed to be as respectful as doable. Ranging from these rules, I made a decision that I might not modify both the amount or the openings whereas maintaining, the place doable, the prevailing supplies.”

Now (gently) redone, the early-1900s stone dwelling is the architect’s important residence. “The constructing had one ‘life,’ and having been deserted for a number of years, the objective was to present it a second one with out forgetting the earlier one,” he provides.

Have a look contained in the architect’s respectful twenty-first-century re-imagining of his great-grandfather’s work.

Pictures by Marcello Mariana, courtesy of EV + A Lab.

“The load-bearing construction composed of chestnut beams and joists was in wonderful situation,” Alfredo writes, “so it was not touched and didn’t want consolidation.” The roof, nevertheless, was in want of cautious restore. “I dismantled the rusty corrugated sheet metallic roofing and eliminated the chestnut planking,” Alfredo provides. “I proceeded to wash the sheet metallic and trim and clear the chestnut planks, which had been then put totally again in place, together with the corrugations.”