Elena is a minimalist home located in Caprarola, Italy, designed by Deltastudio. Surrounded by a centuries-old chestnut grove and a breathtaking view of the town of Caprarola, an old agricultural warehouse finds new life in the will of a young couple. With the arrival of the second child, the two want new spaces: from those for the family that expands, to those more intimate for the couple. The starting point is a structure designed for agriculture.

A rough volume articulated on two levels … warehouse in the basement and laboratory on the upper floor. The two levels are joined by a large external staircase open on two sides. An artifact that is anything but organic, looking for a meeting point with the context. To amalgamate landscape and architecture, the property changes, rewrites itself. Openings, closings, new volumes. Outside, the design approach becomes compositional. A metal structure wraps the house like a grid.

Horizontal and vertical elements frame the views, define spaces, perform the functions of shading during the day and those of lighting in the evening. A device as functional as it is aesthetic, which, in the unifying search for the essential, rewrites prospects and relationships between solids and voids. The method continues within, compositional and always by subtraction. Wide, minimal spaces that open to the landscape. The living area follows the solar arc overlooking the Borgo with large windows.

The sleeping area instead, facing the countryside, investigates the intimate relationship between man and nature, with a succession of smaller openings that like canvases capture and tell different details of the park surrounding the house. The horizontal surfaces, devoid of geometry, infuse in the rooms a natural continuity interrupted only by the large wooden block that hides and separates the functions. On the interior scenic backdrops, the light enhances the sculptural materiality of the furniture, simple and bright, a synthesis of a rediscovered harmony between architecture and context.

Photography by Simone Bossi