In the stark and luminous heart of Val di Noto, Casa Carlita gently and poetically integrates into the landscape of almond and olive trees, stretching across the slopes of a hill and reinterpreting in a contemporary manner the language of ancient Sicilian rural houses. Designed by Studio GUM, a Sicilian duo composed of Valentina Giampiccolo and Giuseppe Minaldi, the residence emerges as a calibrated gesture that dialogues with tradition and the land, without nostalgia or rhetorical mimetism.
The house develops according to a “comb” layout, with a compact curtain on the west that gradually opens towards the east, guiding the gaze all the way to the sea. Nestled between the masonry volumes are three small courtyards, each built around existing olive trees: spatial episodes of breath and relationship that define the threshold between built and nature. This focus on the existing landscape, on what was there before, constitutes the generative principle of the entire project.
The main volume, monolithic, is clad in textured sandstone—a living material that absorbs and reflects light throughout the day, transforming its shell into a vibrant surface. The sober, archetypal geometries—square and triangular—are inspired by dry stone walls, establishing a chromatic and formal dialogue with the surrounding territory. Next to the house, a tower rises as an architectural and landscape marker: it offers a privileged view of the landscape and houses part of the pool, embedded within it like a fragment of water guarded in the stone.
Inside, white lime walls and terrazzo floors provide an essential and delicate material continuity, interrupted only in the kitchen, where patterned cement tiles, laid with initial regularity, give way to a disorderly visual poetry—almost suggesting the freedom of domestic gestures. A long corridor traverses the house along its entire length, piercing the two short facades and reinforcing the visual axis between the rows of olive trees, from which the project itself took shape. Casa Carlita is much more than a residence: it is a declaration of love for the Sicilian landscape, its silences, and its ancient geometries.
Studio GUM, founded in 2009 by Valentina Giampiccolo and Giuseppe Minaldi, develops architecture rooted in the memory of places but with a contemporary and international outlook. Based in Sicily, their work has been published in numerous Italian and international magazines, establishing itself as one of the references of new Mediterranean architecture.
For more info: www.studiogum.it
CREDITS
Project: Casa Carlita
Architect: Studio GUM
Location: Val di Noto, Italy
Year: 2024
Photograph: Filippo Bamberghi
