PDS Home
The project arises from the client's desire to demolish an old disused warehouse, which once belonged to the family's production business, now moved elsewhere, in order to create their own home. With the aim of obtaining different perspectives, a private competition was announced with three design studios invited to participate.
The winning proposal stood out for its commitment to preserving the memory of the place, the building that gave birth to the family business, proposing the creation of an introspective structure that interacts in harmony with natural light. The location, surrounded by a warehouse above and adjacent land, constitutes the most significant challenge imposed by the context, representing the crucial design obstacle to guarantee natural lighting and the quality of the views of the house.
The project transformed this limitation into an opportunity, imagining that the old perimeter walls of the warehouse could become wings capable of embracing an "enclosed garden". Hence the idea of removing the roof of the now dilapidated building, consolidating the existing partitions while maintaining them as a surrounding wall, and inserting a new compact wooden volume inside them. This new architectural form sits respecting the original shape and, thanks to the retreat of the front, leaves space for a secret garden, overlooking the main rooms of the house onto this green oasis.
From an external observer, from public land, this transformation is not perceptible. The intervention did not alter the external appearance of the building, which remains unchanged, still linked to a production system now in disuse. The only clue visible from the street is a small black iron entrance door, a discreet but eloquent sign of the change inside. This door becomes the symbolic passage between the industrial past and the current residential destination, underlining the evolution of the place without distorting its identity.
