HOUSE 18
Outside the ancient Porta San Leonardo (formerly Porta Cavour) in the historic centre of Fano, Brunelli Ann Minciacchi (Arch. Alessandro Brunelli, Arch. Lavinia Ann Minciacchi) realises a project for the renewal of a single-family rowhouse where the dialogue with the existing is achieved thanks to measured figurative and volumetric grafts.
The residential unit is part of a larger building of five houses built in the 1930s following the urban transformation of the neighbouring area linked to the construction of the Luigi Corridoni school (architect Mario de Renzi, 1932-35) and the Regina Elena boarding school, later Vittoria Colonna (architect Luigi and engineer Gaspare Lenzi, 1935-39).
The five rowhouses, with one façade facing the street and one redan facing the private gardens at the back, were built to compensate for the demolition of some dwellings that were located on the site destined for the Boarding School. At the time of construction, the unit in question comprised the main dwelling on two levels and an outbuilding for tool storage. The addition of the veranda (on the ground floor) and a small balcony (on the first floor) are the only additions that have altered the original volumetric layout over the years, changing the appearance of the façade at the back.
Casa 18 fits within the local legislative context that provides for the preservation of the typological features of the layout and the protection of the façade on the street, allowing for minor modifications to the elevation facing the garden.
The street façade has been restored and partially covered with terracotta lozenges defining a decorative base in dialogue with the roof tiles.
At the back, the seriality a redan of the building is interrupted by the addition of the chimney and the insertion of the dormer window at the top which delicately and elegantly alter the proportions of the façade. The veranda space (demolished and rebuilt) recalls the pre-existing pink colours now used for the finish of the roofing sheet and metalwork.
If the small variations in the exterior enrich the aesthetic qualities of a building with traditional features, the interior spatial qualities have been improved by optimising the servant-sserved spaces hierarchy. In fact, the inversion of the staircase at the entrance, rotated but positioned in the same serving strip, has allowed a new distribution of the rooms. Crossing the entrance, a compressed space conceals the staircase and the corridor with a mobile partition in oak (a balance and a cupboard) and allows passage to the living room.
From the first living room, where a wooden equipped wall designs and enriches the space, the spatial sequence of the three ground-floor rooms facing the 39
outdoor garden opens up; the most intimate place in the house, which externally concludes the hall-kitchen-veranda promenade. The continuity of the interior spaces is accentuated by the concrete floor in dialogue with the external mineral surfaces.
A new topography of exposed concrete walls outlines the back garden characterised by two green areas that shape the outdoor paths, improving the accessibility of the small outdoor storage demolished, rebuilt and now used as a laundry room.
The alternative to the sequence of the three rooms on the ground floor is the promenade that crosses the corridor and leads, with two stairs one above the other, to the three rooms on the first floor and the studio located in the attic. This room, previously only accessible via a trapdoor, has now become a habitable space through the insertion of the dormer window: a small volume that attaches itself to the soft Adriatic sky with the natural shades of terracotta.
It is precisely this dialogue between the standard building components (downpipes, structural columns, chimney, dormer window) and their need for abstraction through material and colour that characterises the intervention of Casa 18, which has become an infra-ordinary exception in the rule of the city’s fabric.
