This monolithic single family house, located in the Swiss Alpine village of Lumino, north of Bellinzona, was designed by the Lugano based studio Davide Macullo Architetto. The reinforced concrete structure of the building recalls the revered strength of the local traditional stone built houses, many of which date back centuries and are marked by their use of this single construction material.
“In addition to the local scale references and material cues siphoned from the physical context, the concept and approach to the project was further influenced by the clients’ expressed desire for a minimalist aesthetic, both internally and externally. As such, the quality of the spaces in the house would be defined explicitly by the architecture and not by objects placed within it. The idea of the ‘minimalist monolith’ was adopted as the conceptual generator of the project and became a principle applied to all elements of the both the functional and construction programme, from the foundations up to the smallest finishing details.”
“The geometry of the plan is generated by two shifted parallelepipeds and follows the fall of the site. The typology created by this staggered geometry underlies both the peculiarities of the landscape while also offering each of the levels a direct relationship with the surrounding gardens. The double system of vertical connections, one internal and one external, relates all the spaces of the house in a spiral movement and is in a constant play with its new inhabitants’ perception of time and scale. What is interesting about the house is the ability of the spaces to expand and extend into the landscape, allowing the external become part of the composition. While the individual spaces may be defined geometrically, each space flows into the next and continues to the external.”