In Costabissara, near Vicenza, the studio RigonSimonetti has authored a project of recovery and reinvention that takes shape in the Casa dei Tigli. This involves transforming an late 19th-century residential building, expanded in the 1950s, located on the edge of a small historic core immersed in the Veneto landscape. The intervention resides in that subtle dimension where restoration meets contemporary architecture, aiming to preserve memory without sacrificing the immediacy of living.
The project stems from the insight that even minor structures can be reinterpreted in a contemporary key without stripping away their essence. Architects Francesco Rigon and Margherita Simonetti approach with discretion and restraint: through targeted operations on the existing structures, they enhance permeability between indoor environments and outdoor space, creating a design that emphasizes spatial fluidity and connection with the garden.
A key element of the intervention is the loggia on the ground floor, achieved by reconfiguring a wall section into a system of wooden sliding windows that open fully toward the greenery, transforming the house into a dialoguing organism with nature. This gesture is both structural and poetic.
Materials are the silent protagonists of the project. Lime plaster and exposed bricks of the oldest walls narrate the stratification of time, maintaining their rough, tactile quality. The surfaces are not homogenized but allowed to vibrate in their imperfections, restoring authenticity to the intervention. In contrast, the contemporary integrations are entrusted to multilayered pine wood: custom furnishings and functional volumes are inserted into the historic spaces without overpowering them, creating a compositional balance that revitalizes the entire domestic layout. The project thus becomes an exercise in measure and respect, where the new interprets the past through an architectural language that eschews exhibitionism in favor of listening.
RigonSimonetti is an architecture studio founded in 2019 in Vicenza by Francesco Rigon and Margherita Simonetti. Specializing in the recovery of built heritage, the studio combines professional activity with academic research and a design practice that explores the delicate balance between tradition and innovation.
For more info: www.rigonsimonetti.it
CREDITS
Project: Casa dei Tigli
Architect: RigonSimonetti
Location: Costabissara (VI), Italy
Year: 2024
Photography: Alberto Sinigaglia
