On the top floors of a distinguished Milanese building from the 1930s, Icona Architetti Associati has designed a spacious duplex, recovering the attics of the bâtiment.
In this residential project, the studio was able to create a new space where there was none before by obtaining, from the generous height of the attics under renovation, an additional level through a slight lowering of the floor sill. This solution made it possible not only to recover and make the entire attic area habitable, but also to generate an additional floor, imagining a comfortable duplex flat with a penthouse area and a super-attic.
The entrance is through the entrance compass: it is a box covered with dark textured wallpaper, an interlocal space that preludes the spectacular natural light of the living area.
The living room and kitchen determine the so-called ‘open space’ of the house, occupying the entire level.
The walls transversal to this space have been coloured burgundy to accentuate the colours, as opposed to the walls towards the courtyard and terrace, which are instead left white.
The living room wall has been built around the large baroque gold-leaf frame inherited from the patrons, which is the pendant of the brass Atollo lamp on the cabinet. The marble sofa and dining table dominate the centre stage with their presence: they were custom-designed, like the coffee tables and many other details in the house. The green velvet sofas dialogue chromatically with the dense nature on the terrace. The sofa seats have been designed as modular and can be reassembled in different combinations, adapting to a flexible use of space. The coffee tables and dining table, on the other hand, are exponents of a new combination of marble and wood.
In the kitchen block, the warmth and brightness of teak is combined with the dark, textural rigour of the worktop, softened by sinuous curves, on which the light from the terrace reverberates during the day and into the evening.
The latter runs the entire 20-metre length of the façade. In order to leave the wall of this façade as permeable as possible, extra-large windows have been inserted which almost coincide with the surface, helping to eliminate the threshold between inside and outside.
The spiral staircase is the third key element of the project: here the lightness and transparency of the white ribbon of the metal parapet is contrasted with the muscular, wooden mass of the walnut steps.
Upstairs, in the penthouse, the distribution space is marked by a wall covered in wallpaper that conceals the entrances to the rooms.
The pitch of the roof can be perceived throughout the entire level of the super-attic, but it is particularly acute in the master bedroom, designed by very accentuated cuts. Inside one of these is a small room for yoga and meditation with a view over the roofs of Milan.
Even the bathrooms are characterised by the combination of different materials, such as walnut and dark marble, with burnished brass acting as a trait d’union.
For more information visit www.iconaarchitetti.com.
CREDITS
Project: Apartment Milan Porta Venezia
Studio: Icona Architetti Associati
Location: Milan
Year: 2023
Photo: Monica Spezia
