The House with a View of the Future by Simone Micheli
Imagine being on the slopes of the hills of Settignano, taking a walk between the olive trees, surrounded by the impressive Renaissance villas.
Something you didn’t expect that caps what you did expect is going to happen: hiding behind a XXth century facade, there is an impressive surprise for visitors: it’s about the amazing view they can discover from second floor windows and from the cut-away roof terrace.
Simone Micheli’s project is made of this amazing view reflecting on multiple mirrored surfaces. The Architect says “I designed this House as a free, flexible, sheltered place. My focus was the everyday life so I’ve worked on an hospitable space made to meet friends in an unconventional way. I tried to represent the meaning of life for me and my wife Roberta: I’ve worked on white surfaces liven up with some bright green and orange walls.
This house is a metropolitan refuge made of light, where ancient and contemporary interact through colors, surfaces enhancement, and lighting design.”
A clash between two centuries: the union of two small apartments with very different characteristics through a difficult demolition work (plasters, floors, false ceilings, part of a floor and some portions of the partition walls).
A courageous structural engineering plan has allowed Simone Micheli to create a unique, bright space, and has exceeded the limits of the building’s solid walls and the recent anti-seismic regulations. The result is a bright outdoor environment connecting all the rooms in a spacious open space.
The original wood door was dismantled and reassembled on an armored door. On the other side the door has been decorated with a laser cut quote over a mirror back panel.
Now the house is on three levels: the overall height was used in order to create a sort of joke making intermediate floors: solids and voids, bedrooms e living room.
Living room, dining room and kitchen are part of the same area: the idea is to mix these spaces to share actions and functions.
This main round floor is directly connected with a bath and also with the guest room: both of theserooms are characterized by white doors with silver chrome handle.
In some part of the house the beautiful ancient brick wall is revealed in order to remind the techniques of the medieval architecture. A veil of white lime plaster allows now to perceive the geometries, the connections and the different degrees of roughness of each stone.
Furniture and furnishings are all designed by Simone Micheli: the project is really consistent, balanced and originally essencial.
The sofas seem to float over the bleached parquet: they are positioned all around the rounded corner tv cabinet; the dining table is made from a scented cedar trunk; the chairs around the table are upholstered with cavallino leather and skai.
The kitchen consists of two blocks (stove and fridge cabinet), is all white with a top in solid surface, directly open to the dining area and easy to screen with two roller blinds.
Pillars coated by mirror panels are enhanced by a multicolored stripled in order to accent the reflections. The side of the room’s doors overlooking the living area are mirrored and equipped with a magnetic closure system: Simone and Roberta’s bedroom is equipped with a white lacquered full height cabinets and with an island bed equipped with an upholstered headboard; the room is in direct connection to the bathroom area through a sliding glass door. The bathroom has a large bath / shower in solid surface characterized on the short side with a large stainless steel showerhead. The toilets with rounded edges are ceramic and the chrome faucet collection is lined up on the white lime finished stone wall.
The room of Cesar and Jalel with spacious white lacquered wardrobes has a touch of color in the composition of the yellow lacquered large double bed with the L- shaped base container with large drawers, wall mounted shelves and table; in the center of the room stands a white and silver soccer table.
The second floor realized on a wooden loft is illuminated by a large automated opening skylight, it hosts a smalll video room, a fitness area with bike and runner, a bookshelves set on an asymmetric stainless steel structure and two deep storage areas screened by roller blinds. The third floor is the terrace which was designed as an outdoor livingroom: in fact, there is a barbecue area, a kitchen with gas stove and single tank sink. A part of this outdoor area can be shaded by a retractible blind on a carbon fiber and stainless steel structure.
This house has been planned and realized for a dynamic and intense family life without excess, multiple and sustainable, made of natural materials and finishing, easy to walk through and dimmable to any direction desire even with an i-pad touch.
Photography by Juergen Eheim
- by Matt Watts
