La Nera: inside a striking black box house in Italy - House Tour by Studio Scaramucci

This black box is located in Castel di Lama. We are in the province of Ascoli Piceno, and it's a town with a micro-industrial vocation, one of those situations where to do architecture, you basically have to create your own micro-context every single time. This house is home to my family. Me, my wife, who is also an architect, and our two children. The home was built to replace an old 1950s building within a non-homogeneous cluster. It shares two of its four sides with other properties, and on the eastern side, it shares the garden in a kind of family co-gardening with a neo-liberty style villa from the early 20th century. Given the urban planning constraints, since the house replaces a pre-existing volume and sits adjacent to other properties, the project aimed to renounce any formal ambition. So, form, color, material, everything is essentially reduced to space and structure. The entrance to the home is through a small path that winds through a pre-existing bamboo grove, which becomes an opportunity to turn the house into a continuation of this path through the bamboo, the tree-lined avenue. It's a sort of hollowed-out cave where the structure and the reinforced concrete walls become a continuation of this walk and turn into architecture. Upon entering, we find this double-height open space, where this large area contrasts with the compressed spaces found in the rest of the house. On the ground floor is the living room, which spans two slightly staggered levels, and the heart of the living area is the kitchen. We wanted the kitchen to be the very hub of social interaction, so whoever is preparing food is always connected with those at the table, on the sofa, or others living in the house. In choosing and using materials, we wanted to emphasize their handcrafted character. So for the floors, we chose to use exposed reinforced concrete. The same goes for the walls. We wanted the holes from the tie rods used during the formwork and pouring of the reinforced concrete to remain in the walls. The flooring, providing a tactile contrast to the cold concrete, was actually made from heat-treated oak with visible knots. The window frames were made of laminated oak and have a very strong handcrafted character. In particular, the main entrance façade was entirely handmade on-site by a local craftsman. Within this laminated oak grid, the opening fixtures, the window and the entrance door, were then positioned. Going up to the first floor, we find the sleeping area, which essentially consists of the living room, one for the parents and one for the children. The master bedroom is characterized by a bed placed in the center of the room. Behind the bed, a curtain slides to reveal a window that literally frames the mountain of Ascoli Piceno, Mount Piseli. The children's room is characterized by two canopy beds, a reinterpretation of the classic style, which allows the children to take ownership of the space. The bed then becomes an element of play. And then there's this glass partition overlooking the living room, framed by a custom wall unit handcrafted by the carpenter we worked with. The home's exterior is characterized by absolute minimalism. In a way, formal research is stripped away. A single material is used, at least for the main structure, which is a heat-reflective black plaster. However, this logic of reduction is countered by an honest rejection of a perhaps overrated virtue, consistency on the south side. On the south side, the scene changes completely. The connection with the Art Nouveau villa is gone, as is the link to nature and the woods. The paradigm shifts entirely toward absolute freedom, playfulness, and pop culture references. There are colorful tiles and round windows evoking naval architecture, and in a way, childhood itself. We like to say that this black box is at the moment being used as a residence. By that, we mean it was not strictly designed as a typical house, but rather as a structure that is flexible and can be adapted over time, evolving as situations and needs change. In just half a day, by making some technical adjustments or moving around the furniture, it could easily become a workshop, a laboratory, or even an architecture studio, depending on what is needed at the time. This obsession with an adaptable home stems from the legendary projects of 1970s architects who sought the famous evolutionary house that could adapt to changing times and circumstances.