During the site works of the house with garden and caves, studiometrico was asked to think of possible ways of re-using the ruins of a small existing building that layed adjacent to the main house. The initial task was to insert a very small room for guests without completely filling the hollow volume. Some empty space should have been preserved to bring natural light into the caves below the house turning the ruins of the building into a patio. An early design proposal featured a hanging two storey prefab living unit of 2 by 4 meters. Although this seemed like a convincing solution and an exciting design challenge, a new discovery completely changed the project: another ‘secret’ room was found on the opposite side of the ‘patio’. After long negotiations the small room was purchased by the owner of the house for the given purpose…

Overall plan of the new scheme with the house on the right, the patio in the middle, and the newly discovered room on the left.

In the new design proposal the patio is kept almost untouched: a linear staircase leads up to the guest room which expands and overlook into the the patio through a 3-dimensional light-constructed window. The 12 sqm room has also an independent entrance on the opposite side and is conceived as an essential and compact piece of furniture with a bed, a desk, a cupboard and a small toilet. Two small existing windows look toward the panorama, the existing pitched roof profile is mantained. Although this is an extremely  small project, for the difficult accessibility to the site, for the poor conditions of the existing buildings and for the dangerous position just above unfriendly and steep cliffs, the transformation is going to be quite slow and adventurous. Site works should start next spring, and we’ll keep on posting…

Section through the guest room and the patio

Plan of the guest room and the patio

View from the patio toward the 3-dimensional window

The interior views of the guest room

See previous posts about this project:

House with garden and caves

House with garden and caves – 2

House with garden and caves – 3

see related posts:

• House with garden and caves
• House with garden and caves / 2

Download pdf file [159 KB] with project layout here