Located in the Italian Pianura Padana, at the urban edge of a small country town facing a river, Villa Orizzonte blends in with the surrounding landscape seeking maximum integration with the environment, also thanks to its southward orientation and privileged view toward the river.
The new one-story villa gently respects the old footprint of an old demolished two-story rural house. It is conceived as an extensive line in an open landscape overlooking the river, its presence is mostly perceived horizontally rather than volumetrically, its footprint integrates into the natural context as a powerful act in horizontality. The roof was designed as the fifth façade of the building and it is equipped with a careful selection of solar panels and skylights in order to maximize the villa’s energetic performances. The roof is the unifying element of all the volumes, it is designed with a balance of voids and solids which define the indoor and outdoor spaces, blending with the vegetation, letting the light filter in and marking through its four voids the rhythm of the interior space. The first roof perforation designs like a Roman atrium the courtyard entrance to the house, the second void provides privacy to the bedrooms and hosts two suggestive Japanese acer trees. The third opening becomes a private patio for the master bedroom acting as an outdoor extension of the house; the fourth, almost as a cut in the roof, enlightens the corridor through a zenithal skylight.