Casa Sotto la Nuvola in the Tuscan Hills: volumes, light, and landscape

Among the poetic and precious Tuscan hills, a historic rural building, present in the Leopoldino Cadastre but no longer in reality, is brought back to life in the architectural cells of the contemporary Casa Sotto la Nuvola (House Under the Cloud)

Volumes that open into "optical telescopes" to swallow light and beauty

Protecting the environmental context and minimizing the visual impact from the Via Francigena are the focuses that, together with a contemporary conception of living, guide the project by LDA.iMdA associated architects for the Casa Sotto la Nuvola. Oriented on a north-south axis perpendicular to the ridge of the hill, the dwelling immerses itself in the landscape thanks to its volumes that open into "optical telescopes" to swallow its light and beauty

Revisited Ancestral Forms

The old pre-existing farmhouse is remembered in the ancestral forms but revisited in the Casa Sotto la Nuvola: the slender body of the building, topped by the gable roof, is made contemporary by the essentiality of materials and decorations, in the typical language used in the architectural projects of LDA.iMdA. The new nature of the dwelling is definitively declared by the optical telescope on the side facing the valley and the overhang of the upper floor that creates the covered patio in front of the living room

A re-reading of functions and spatial distribution

The villa is composed of two separate volumes: the main one housing the residence and a smaller one for the guest house. The separation provides privacy and is formally harmonized by a covered pathway connecting the buildings. In the Casa Sotto la Nuvola, the sleeping area is located on the ground floor while the communal spaces and daytime activities are accommodated in the basement in a re-reading of functions and spatial distribution that characterizes some modern architectures like the Tugendhat House by Mies Van Der Rohe

Cloud of pine needles that is no longer there today

Throughout the project, the desire to maintain a connection with the culture and history of the place has remained fundamental, with its forms, its landscape, its traditional materials, as well as "the ethereal dimension of the sky, captured for a long time during the construction of the house by that cloud of pine needles that is no longer there today" (LDA.iMdA)

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