The project involves the construction of a oriental day SPA in Rome. The clients are important collectors of contemporary art in Rome and at the same time are big lovers of Asia and Asian culture.
The design started from the reuse of an existing detached house, in a rather confused and degraded context, transformed in a contemporary way through simple but substantial changes.
The building become a sculptural object, with a strong and elementary volume, minimal and primary as a sculpture by Donald Judd but made of a warm material with the touch feeling and the colour tones of the woods in the traditional oriental architecture. A timeless stereometric form over a chaotic cityscape.
The new shape, is a wooden box facing the street, rotated respect to it, containing four big treatments suites each floor on two levels. The entrance is from a base along the sidewalk which leads to an open lobby in the basement.
The basement level is an open space around a cloister and is occupied by the lobby with the reception desk on one side, an open steel stair on the other, and by the wet areas with a glass hammam overlooking a whirpool on the other.
On the top floor terrace there is a large water mirror containing three circular whirlpools for open air relax .