PASSA.TEMPO by Michele Gambato
PASSA.TEMPO is a private residence set on a hillside in Montefano, Italy. Designed by Michele Gambato, it recovers the orthography of local rural houses, exploring a strong conceptual architectural design that connects the surrounding landscape with the intimate, domestic space through oversized windows and abstract openings. The theme of nature preserves and emphasizes the connection with the outside, as well as the necessary degree of permeability in space and time.
Passa.tempo: An Architectural Reflection on the Landscape
Passa.tempo is a private residence located on a Marche hillside in Contrada Passatempo, a scenically unspoiled place between Osimo and Montefano. It was designed by Padua-based michele gambato architect firm, mgark, which recovers the essential orthography of local rural houses. It is a building that takes its cue from the environment, letting the landscape be the protagonist with its spaces and philosophy.
A Designing Philosophy
There was a desire to capitalize on the legacy of farmhouses in the Marche countryside, which teaches us how to be in contact with nature.
Passa.tempo is a space that welcomes life, which finds in it and in the reciprocal relationship with the surrounding environment its raison d’être. Fields of grass or cultivated with wheat, sunflowers with scattered olive trees and expanses of rows of vines surround the single-family dwelling Passa.tempo.
Situated on a ridge, crossed by the landscape, it fits into the territory, exploring the theme of the border and searching for new forms of permeability in space and time.
A Flow of Nature
Michele Gambato designed the residence with clean and original forms, bringing together the orthography of traditional rural buildings and experimentation with different contemporary architectural experiences to create a project destined to make a difference. An architecture with a strong conceptual soul, linked to history and with a poetics that explores space, freedom and flexibility of use. Passa.tempo is a hymn to the flow of the life of nature, which enters from the large sky-to-ground windows to the south and north and is then framed by the many openings in the rooms to the east and west; thus, the house is transformed into a kind of device that connects the hilly landscape with the intimate, domestic space, achieving true interpenetration.
Housed Space as a Threshold
Passa.tempo is a reflection on inhabited space understood as a threshold: it is based on the relationship with the outside, which is the territory extended to the extreme of the gaze. The grass reaches to the edge of the house, which is surrounded only by a sidewalk. The house is immersed in cultivated fields as if it belongs to the idea of overflowing, of breaking boundaries, without following the conventions whereby private living space is separated from agricultural work space. The project by michele gambato starts from the contemporary and modern reinterpretation of the disused farmhouse, where the elements of traditional rural life are revisited and respond to current needs. It creates a home from it, a place of relaxation with accommodations, a wellness center with green space and a swimming pool. Areas once dedicated to work (barn) have been emptied, leaving a triple-height void space. To accommodate today’s needs, the living area has been doubled and the once external connection area (staircase) enters the void.
Staircase as Connection Space
Symbolically, the space left behind by the past peasant life is now transformed into the connection space with the various functions of the modern building by an imposing rose gold-colored steel staircase. The building features a pitched roof and a clean line that gives freedom for the arrangement of openings: these, positioned abstractly, frame nature from the rooms located on the east and west fronts. The north and south fronts, on the other hand, feature large windows in the heart of the building at the central void, around which the living spaces are organized. The ground floor is dedicated to the living area, in spatial continuity with an open volume that crosses the space from one side to the other. The sleeping area is on the f irst and second floors, where the bedrooms and bathrooms are located. Slightly offset from the main house is an independent building dedicated to the wellness center, a multipurpose room and a SPA in direct relation to the swimming pool, located in the ‘green area with a slight slope.
Photography by Matteo Natalucci
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