Architectural design: Alessandro Caronia Architect

Structural design: Alfonso Cusmano Engineer

Plant design: Giorgio Orlando Engineer

Topographic restitution: Giuseppe Barocchieri Architect

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Renovation design of a house and its outdoor areas in the Gratteri countryside, Sicily. The land, 2.5 hectares in size, slopes gently toward the coast, with impressive views of the sea and the coastline, and is characterised by mediterranean vegetation, with oak cork trees and an olive grove.

The house was built in the eighties, with a surrounding patio and a swimming pool. The building structure is in rendered reinforced concrete.

The project is aimed at keeping the existing volumes, improving their architectural quality and their thermal efficiency with the use of natural materials, and fostering the relationship between interiors and exteriors, by means of new openings, and the introduction of three pergolas in corten steel and wood. The two large pergolas at the ground floor will be used for the outdoor activities of the property owner (who is a yoga instructor and a Shatzu therapist), will act as filters between indoor and outdoor space, and will help shading the interiors in the summer; the pergola at the first floor will shade part of the panoramic terrace.

The existing cracked outdoor pavements around the house and the swimming pool will be remade with natural stone. The project also includes the replacement of an existing retaining wall in front of the North-West elevation with a green retaining structure in reinforced earth, with a sloping outline that will integrate it in the morphology of the site.

The plants will be completely remade, with the introduction of PV panels integrated in the pitched roofs, a water purification system, and an irrigation system for the land.

At a second stage, the project envisages the connection of the renovated structure with the land, by means of a naturalistic path that will link the main features of the property (among them a water reservoir), with resting and meditation areas and bird-watching points, and will be integrated with a general agronomic project, that will include the creation of a food forest.  

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