Villa Di Gioia

Bari, Italy

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Villa Di Gioia

Bari, Italy

Firm

Pedone Working

Type

Residential › Private House

YEAR

2011

Introduction
“As project designers, we believe architecture should have expressive autonomy and provide concrete answers to the needs of society.”
Building on this principle, in the last decade we have been focusing on seeking expressive potentials of sustainable architecture in Southern Italy. Adopting an experimental approach, we have been blending sustainable and contemporary architecture at any possible level: local, urban and private.
We combine an accurate research into the evolution of traditional building systems with our technological expertise on the highest standards of energy efficiency. Our experience, culture and drive for innovation led us to complete in 2011 the one-family house “Villa Di Gioia: CasaClima Gold+”, a Mediterranean style passive house located in Bisceglie, in the Southern Italian region of Apulia. Recently, this house was awarded with the CASACLIMA AWARDS 2013. It features very low consumptions and CO2 emission rates, environmentally friendly materials, renewable energy sources, passive contribution of solar diagrams and natural ventilation. Natural resources were used and recycled for this house, which is a comprehensive example of integration between architecture and sustainability.

The location
The single-family house is located in Bisceglie, one of the most idyllic and charming seaside resorts in the Italian Southern region of Apulia. This coastal area has numerous residential and touristic households and is reached by all public utilities, even though it is outside the urban area of Bari, the nearest big city. On the ground floor, the house project has an articulated volume that goes upwards and creates a tower overlooking the central patio. The L-shaped higher floor is more compact and intimate, suitable as sleeping area. The front of the house has a metallic cover structure gripped to a “glass box” hosting the living area. The colours of this area are reflected in a large water pool located underneath.
The central patio is the hub of the whole project. Here is the entrance to the living room, designed as an open space with glass walls overlooking the garden. The kitchen and other rooms with different sizes are also visible from here, mingling together without blurring. An open staircase leads to the sleeping area of the higher level.

Nature and architecture
This house, set in the midst of a typical Mediterranean scenery, was designed as an open space in harmony with the surrounding nature.
It stands out of its setting but it is also integrated into it; the surrounding countryside, the coastline, the sky and the light become part of it. On one hand materials and colours are those traditionally used in Apulian architecture, on the other hand the innovative design, stripped of all decorations, follows a strictly linear pattern that pays tribute to the rationalist legacy.
Our project is food for thought on the possibility for architecture to generate fruitful interactions between artificially designed and natural environments. The elaborate distribution of space was highly influenced by ecological design, aiming to make full use of the prevailing solar and wind energy of this area. This architectural approach is clearly visible in the shape of the building, in the position of the openings, in the search for excellent exposition to the light and the sun in all seasons and in the study of the mutual shading between the house structures and the surrounding nature.

Building technology
This villa was built following the rules of sustainability and of the Mediterranean passive house. Sustainable building technologies with zero consumption were used. Its ultra low energetic needs are all covered by a photovoltaic system with an output of 5 KW, which is fully integrated in the roof. Its energetic footprint is null as all energy efficiency measures were adopted: its caulking system creates no thermal bridge; its insulated windows have triple glazing for low emissions and strict control of airproof sealing; heating is produced by an air to air heat pump and there is a heat recovery ventilation system. An electric boiler produces hot water with heat pump technology.
Building materials: This house features a concrete framework system with an external wall package made of an insulation system of natural brown cork toasted with a width of 10 centimetres. Its thermal perforated bricks, each of them sized 35/40 centimetres, have EPS “T” joint-cut beam. In addition, natural hydraulic lime and fibre reinforced siloxane-elastomer wall coating were used. The interior and exterior render, such as adhesives and levelling for the coat and the finish, are based on natural hydraulic lime NHL, which is highly breathable. The same attention was devoted to the choice of water coating systems for its internal spaces and for the villa's floor in bio-gres on the ground floor. European reforestation oak parquet was used for the sleeping area floor on the upper level.
Building materials with low thermal transmittance and high thermal mass were preferred over others. This allowed a significant thermal time lag and a thermal time damping for house walls with exposure to the South and the West and for coverings. This is of paramount importance for houses located in Southern regions.

Bioclimatic housing
A careful balancing between bioclimatic planning, choosing the right energetic strategies and appliances and using building materials as traditional and performing as possible: these are the main features ensuring that this house is a Mediterranean passive house. Energy is consumed but also recuperated through both the passive heating generated by the sun and the heating and cooling systems with high performance and low impact. The principles of bioclimatic housing were applied to find the ideal house orientation, through a careful study of solar diagrams. Openings were placed and sized to guarantee adequate natural ventilation. In the summer, the windows opening inclination aims at catching the cool summer breeze and pushing upwards the hot air, full of CO2. This is achieved by the “stack effect”, with double high cuts of the loft between the floors through the window facing south of the stairs. In the winter, on the other hand, airtight window closing activates the heat recovery ventilation system, which ensures the necessary air exchange.
In this house, a fully fledged passive heating system is in place, as the living room pavilion on the Western side is fully glassed. This allows heat conservation and a significant thermal accumulation in the winter for the whole house. In the summer, this glass pavilion is fittingly shaded by a row of deciduous "flower mulberry” trees. Based on the study of solar diagrams, their size and position were designed to avoid direct solar radiation and reduce residual heat. Water evaporation is achieved in a small pond below the glass, which draws from a rainwater tank (forty thousand liters capacity) located under the patio and is to be used to irrigate the surrounding garden.