SONO
This secondary residence organically articulates a unified composition, oriented toward northern light, framing landscapes found within a vast panorama that opens onto the site. Three long concrete walls of varying heights, in scale with the landscape, form the approach to the building: they resonate with the permanence of the now-architectured site and anchor it in time. A narrow gap between the walls reveals the entrance. Beyond this threshold, the spaces organize the living areas according to a flexible layout and timber structure, thereby signaling their capacity to adapt over a more distant temporal horizon.
The clients, a couple of friends wishing to share the same secondary residence, had an implicit directive: to share a space without being obliged to “live together” in every respect. The articulation of the architectural volumes thus creates a meandering sequence of spaces that gradually reveal the whole, ensuring a certain visual intimacy and a fragmentation of the acoustic environment. Sign of the times, the kitchen is the space that opens completely onto the landscape: a gathering place, both for the couple and their guests, and metaphorically, with the surrounding natural environment.
The conceptual framework of the project is therefore not based on stylistic or identity-related architectural references of the region. Rather than prescribing specific uses, it weaves connections between the body’s in situ perception of the landscape and the real, and that of the space that “frames” experiences across the variations of time.
This refers to the intention to promote a practice that prioritizes the phenomenological qualities of space, rather than being determined by a calculated assembly of programmatic components. The spaces unfold in terraces following the natural slope of the site. The varied viewpoints revealed within each room, together with the shifting qualities of the indirect light, constitute the haptic characteristics which, like the large abstract wall abutting the landscape upon arrival, are the result of the sensitive exploration advocated by the firm. The outcome is an architectural language that responds to the heterogeneity of the real, rather than constructing a rigid identity derived from often exclusive precepts.
