Pailunga is a place that resonates. Once a small deconsecrated chapel nestled among the Tuscan hills of Fauglia, it now lives again as a home-atelier, transformed by Atelier Vago into a space suspended between intimacy and artistic creation. Here, where a rural community once gathered around liturgical rituals, music and art find a new threshold — one that preserves memory while opening itself to the present.
The project neither overlaps nor erases, but rather works by subtraction, allowing the double height of the nave to retain its silent monumentality. The new interventions — the sky-blue iron staircase, a functional ribbon incorporating the kitchen and bathroom, and a wooden mezzanine overlooking the apse — assert their autonomy without ever disrupting harmony with the existing structure. The staircase’s sky-blue hue converses with the surviving fresco fragments, turning traces of memory into contemporary gestures that illuminate the space with lightness.
The apse, once the liturgical heart, is now devoted to the piano. The first section of the staircase, removable, is shifted during concerts to clear the view and restore the space to its performative dimension. Like a small domestic theatre, everyday life and artistic experience flow seamlessly together, merging into a natural choreography of gestures, sounds, and presences.
Outside, the holm oaks and surrounding nature become an integral part of the design — living paintings framed by the openings and by the skylight that captures the sky. There is no artificial landscaping here, only respect for the beauty already present: greenery, light, and air enter the interiors as full-fledged design materials.
Sustainability takes shape through measured choices — the involvement of local artisans, custom-designed staircases, and reuse as the project’s guiding principle. Pailunga adds no weight, but instead returns an architecture of lightness, one that welcomes and amplifies, where memory naturally takes root in the present.
For more information, visit www.ateliervago.com
CREDITS
Project: Pailunga – Artist Residence
Architects: Atelier Vago
Location: Fauglia (PI), Italy
Year: 2024–2025
Photography: Carlotta Di Sandro
