Baita Aleccio

Design premises – March 1996

A project dating from 1996.

A mountain home at the edge of the world, facing an immense landscape. Even today, almost thirty years after completion, it shows no signs of ageing inside or out. The care with which the owners have maintained the rooms is remarkable: the furniture still appears new. The spaces and finishes also remain entirely contemporary because, in keeping with my natural way of working, the original project avoided fashionable or extravagant gestures. The luxury of time, surrounded by comfort, peace and high-altitude tranquillity.

Technical report – March 1996

Working from outside in, the most natural decision was to retain the dry-stone perimeter walls and introduce sandblasted larch windows. Their weathered appearance contrasts with a thoroughly contemporary construction using monobloc frames, double rebates and special “eco” glazing. I treated each window as an element to emphasise and bring decisively to the foreground; hence the substantial serizzo-stone jambs and lintels supporting the masonry above.

The roof also remained in local stone slabs, although newly built, with the unavoidable addition of chimney stacks serving the internal fireplaces. The gutters were to be made of timber, appropriately insulated inside. In the semi-basement intended as a cellar, the existing entrance door could be retained after careful restoration. That room would receive little insulation so as not to alter the conditions required for preserving cured meats, cheeses and, above all, wine. The upper part of the house, by contrast, was designed with the most effective insulation possible: a double layer of insulating panels, an 8 cm hollow-brick lining and, in many areas, internal timber boarding. A continuous insulation layer lies beneath the floors; in the attic, a cork blanket between two larch boardings provides excellent thermal and acoustic protection. The central element that captures attention immediately upon entering the ground floor — and largely determines the quality of the space — is the staircase to the attic. It is a unique piece, lit like a star, traditional in material yet contemporary in form: a notion that evolves within human culture through heightened observation and greater contact with other cultural contexts…

The dining area is separated from the entrance and fireplace zone through two small but meaningful devices: a curved cut in the flooring that echoes the staircase, and a change of material underfoot — larch towards the kitchen and mosaic stone on the other side. The entrance flooring continues into the bathroom, where the larch wall lining was to be stained red, making the room distinct and still warmer, a pleasant sensation against unprotected skin. The wall behind the shower was left in natural stone to evoke the powerful relationship we experience when water runs over the rock of a waterfall beneath which we would love to bathe, perhaps with the person we love… The attic, already full of character, is further enhanced by fireplaces in both bedrooms. Each of these heating elements was to be designed individually, balancing visual pleasure and practical performance. The sandwich partitions contain fire-resistant, mineralised wood-wool panels providing thermal and acoustic insulation between two layers of larch boarding.

The south-facing main bedroom has a 4 m² balcony with a balustrade in authentic Walser style. One wall is entirely in fine exposed stone, highlighted by wall lamps. In the main bedroom, the children’s room and the bathroom between them, built-in furniture was planned against the sloping roof junctions to use the limited space as efficiently as possible. Lighting throughout the building, including outside, was designed to create the warmest possible atmosphere without reducing illumination to levels harmful to eyesight. Important surfaces, particularly attractive furniture and external walls became carefully emphasised symbols, each with the appropriate light source. Water is heated by a forced-draught LPG boiler; the same gas supplies the kitchen hob after pressure reduction from two 25-litre cylinders. The entire installation was to comply with Italian Law 46/90. The furniture shown on drawing no. 3 is purely indicative: every element requires detailed study and becomes a new design proposition with all the care that this entails. Every piece of furniture or accessory will be unique and must last forever. Any intervention, whether an entire house or a kitchen table, changes space and above all our relationship with that space. I therefore believe that every completed or proposed action must have a profound philosophy, so that the owners never doubt their decisions or regret them.