Casa Matì Revives a 1930s Cellar into a Luminous Palermo Apartment
Casa Matì sits in Palermo, Italy, a few steps from the Teatro Politeama, where a 1930s cellar becomes an apartment with uncommon poise. PuccioCollodoro Architetti leads the conversion, turning a long, airless volume into a home that breathes light and material richness. The plan orients around a double-height living area and a sculptural stair, while oak, resin, and antique tiles lend tactile weight and memory.
Light spills down from new skylights and slides across oak. Shadows pool under a suspended metal stair before drifting into rooms shaped by bespoke furniture.
This apartment conversion in Palermo turns a 1930s cellar into a home by PuccioCollodoro Architetti. The core move pivots on material clarity and crafted joinery, using oak, resin, and antique cement tiles to balance light and weight. A double-height living area centers the composition and gives the interior a confident rhythm.
Set the Focal
The suspended metal staircase commands the double-height room, a crisp line drawn through air and light. Its landing meets a natural oak storage element, binding sculpture to utility and stitching circulation to cabinetry in a single gesture. The eye climbs with the treads, then falls to the hearth and the herringbone underfoot.
Work With Light
Skylights pierce the roof to ventilate and brighten the former cellar. Daylight drifts into corners once starved of air, stretching across resin surfaces that read as a calm plane between rooms. The result is steady illumination rather than glare, a quiet register for the oak’s grain and the stair’s shadow.
Compose With Oak
Natural oak sets the home’s tone, warm and exact. Herringbone parquet runs the main rooms, while built-in walls and bespoke furniture align storage with structure. In the private rooms, a walk-in wardrobe continues the timber language (handles, joints, and reveals reinforce a precise cadence). Nothing feels ornamental; everything earns its keep.
Lay the Ground
Resin introduces continuity underfoot, its seamless surface easing transitions between volumes. Antique cement tiles arrive as inserts, a measured accent with history and grit. One patterned “rug” anchors a living zone, threading memory through a contemporary shell and cueing movement from hearth to stair.
Detail the Thresholds
An invisible door sets a clean plane, closing without a visible frame or fuss. Nearby, a sculpted fireplace brings mass and glow to the room, a counterpoint to the stair’s lightness. Custom-made pieces tighten the language: solids meet voids, geometry finds a human scale, and storage reads as architecture.
The city hums outside the Teatro Politeama, while inside the air holds steady and bright. Materials do the talking, and the plan keeps them in balance. The former cellar steps into the present with light, grain, and a measured depth that invites daily use.
Photography by Carlo Oriente
Visit PuccioCollodoro Architetti
