Sotto

The client already knew what a good house was. She had lived in several. What she asked for was something she had not seen before.

The villa already stood, and it was an ordinary one. Its floor heights were standard and nothing in its section gave it presence. A house like that can be finished beautifully and still feel like the house next door.

We cut the slab out of the middle of the house. A double-height volume now runs through its centre, and every room on both floors takes its bearings from it. The house stopped being a stack of floors and became one interior.

The plan is zoned by time, not by function. The basement takes the evening: cinema, gaming, the bar. The ground floor takes the day. The first floor takes the night.

Deep timber absorbs the weight of the day; stone is lit quietly from within. A long fire burns at the centre of the reception, and the ceiling drops as you move away from it, so the room gets more private the further in you go.

The rooftop reverses the logic — it opens completely, and the city is finally allowed in, on the owners' terms.

Breccia marble, smoked oak, blackened steel, brushed brass. A restricted palette used at four levels of scale, from the facade down to a drawer pull, so nothing in the house reads as an afterthought.