VILLA N is a private home with an introverted character due to the need to ensure the necessary privacy from the surrounding urban fabric which is very close; this limiting element became the starting point for establish the main organization strategy of the project, based on a central courtyard to obtain a large breath to the living area, despite this initial condition of compression.
Project status: completed in 2015
Location: Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy
Internal surfaces: about 500 square meters on three levels
Area’s surface: 1200 square meters
This large and three-layered space has been closed and covered only partially and has been carefully defined to be perceived as a “collector” into which the internal spaces flow without interruption.
Thanks to it, the whole living area acquires a monumental enphasis, like from the transformation of a building originally intended for a productive purpose with its appropriate dimensions.
This feeling is difficult to transmit through the photography dimension and would require the cinematic dynamism instead.
The sleeping area on the first floor is very simple; it has a more private and atmospheric connotation, due to its sensitivity to natural light variations.
The volumes of the villa have been gradually deconstructed to the point of dematerializing its architecture up to the edges of the small available area; in this way the architects wanted to circumvent the problem of mass concentration in the center with the formation of useless perimetral areas.
The result is a sequence of connected and well-defined outdoor environment, never completely closed and neither completely opened, in which architectural and natural elements create an artificial micro landscape; a very “structured garden” that can be traveled in many ways.
The client’s preference for right angles, flat surfaces and the clarity of the forms affected the project but, despite the consequent statical nature, the architects tried to overcome these very heavy constraints creating a dinamic shape, necessarily closed to relations with the urban context, but thanks to its fragmented forms, capable to establish a dialogue with the landscape on the upper scale.
ARCHITETTURA MATASSONI
From its studio near Arezzo in Italy, ARCHITETTURA MATASSONI works inspired by the classical figure of the architect who moves throughout different fields of creative thought, paying special attention to plastical solutions in their architectural design that is its most important field; however the firm is engaged also in the industrial design, in the garden design, and carry on a continuous architectural critic activity.
Indeed both the architects are associated with the Italian Association of Architecture and Criticism – AIAC – and as such, they carry on their own architectural criticism activity from the pages of the important italian webzine presS/Tletter (the official voice of AIAC), writing articles, participating in conferences, architects meetings and debates promoted by this and other national associations.
The firm’s creative vocation is for a “natural architecture” that focuses on those fundamental human needs concerning the “shelter”; this means an essential architecture and in a certain sense, primitive, devoid of sophistications and capable of comunicating with the unconscious, creating artificial landscapes and spaces suitable for living “innately”.
Exhibitions:
Among these various activities ARCHITETTURA MATASSONI showed its architectural works during some important personal exhibitions in Rome, in 2012 and 2014; the first, titled “Progressioni spaziali”, was curated by Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi and organized inside the prestigious location of “Casa dell’Architettura” at Acquario Romano complex (the official site of the roman architects association – Ordine degli Architetti di Roma e Provincia).
The second exhibition titled “TORNARE AL FUTURO, abitare con la natura”, showing mantavilla project, took place at INTERNO 14, the AIAC’s space in Rome, and was curated by Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi and Roberta Melasecca.
During the month of december 2015, “Villa N project” has been classified at the third position in the ranking of the best buildings of the year realised by the italian architects around the world!
The ranking has been published on the pages of the most important italian economical newspaper; Il Sole 24 ore!
In may 2016, mantavilla project and Villa Urbana project have been exposed in a personal exhibition within “IMAESTRI project” by Mr. Radnall, a wide event dedicated to luxury life style, at Grunewald, Munich, in Germany. The event was comprehensive of many great firms of contemporary architecture!
Recently, ARCHITETTURA MATASSONI has been invited to take a part with its mantavilla project in the architecture exhibition “CHANGING ARCHITECTURE”, organized during the sixth regional meeting of “Consulta Architetti di Sicilia” . The event was held in Ragusa, Palermo and Catania, in Sicily.
During march 2017 the firm signed a design exhibition project for “prossimo futuro, 45 designer italiani under 40”, a traveling design exhibition for 45 projects at Casa dell’Architettura, Acquario Romano, Rome.
The exhibition was curated by Luigi Prestinenza puglisi and Monica A.G. Scanu, and was promoted by Ordine degli Architetti di Roma e Provincia and AIAC, the Italian Association of Architecture and Criticism.
In November 2017 ARCHITETTURA MATASSONI has been invited to show its work mantavilla project at the second edition of BIENNALE DI ARCHITETTURA DI PISA (inside the section dedicated to sperimental projects titled “REFRESH“) and to take a part in the traveling architecture exhibition titled “progetti stesi”, the both, curated by AIAC.
