programme: plans, renovation management and interiors of a flat in the historical city centre.

client: Private commission

team: sophia los

collaborators: michela gugole, lisa modenini, cristiana rossetti, donato de pizziol

city: verona, Italy

status: completed, 2009

Renovation of a flat situated on the top floor of an historical building. The revision of internal partitions aimed at making the best possible use of the available surface area. The dry wooden walls work as containers in most cases, thus creating a coherent and fluid space. In the hall, an enclosed balcony extends the exceedingly small kitchen area. For this intervention, we selected biocompatible materials and technologies: walls and fitted wardrobes made of white-washed tulipwood panels and oak wood darkened with water-based stains, dark oak floors, colour wash paint, acoustic insulation in kenaf, combining panels of different densities, and teak panelling for the master bathroom. We installed radiant ceiling heating and cooling in the sleeping area and underfloor heating and cooling in the living area to protect the plasterwork ceiling.

Originally designed for a young couple with a small child, the flat has hosted the man’s father since 2015, as his son moved to a bigger house. For this project, the plasterwork on the ceiling was carefully restored by Andrea Ciresola.

photos: alberto sinigaglia

programme: plans, construction management of the interiors and balcony.

client: private commission

team: sophia los

Collaborators: renza mara calabrese (balcony), luca fadini (landscaping), laboratorio morseletto 

city/area: sommacampagna, Italy

status: completed, 2009

Renovation of a top floor flat of an historical building.

The container wall in the living room, the shaping of natural light (through the creation of two niches), and the sleeping area chromatic schemes are the main project themes. 

aggiungi da articolo viliana

The works finished in 2009 with the completion of the balcony. On the other side of the wall, we could glimpse a beautiful park. This fact inspired the whole project: a little balcony with a panoramic view, adding the exterior to renovation work I had undertaken in a small Veronese flat. The sight was remarkable, but peeking the park on the other side of the wall proved irresistible. So, I imagined steps that turn into countertop and sink, recalling the stairs full of vases of ancient “borghi” (medieval hamlets) and completing the balcony space with one single functional and playful element. For the relaxing area, surrounded by plants selected among the ancient species in the nearby countryside, I designed a folding sofa-bed, where one can sunbathe as on a boat.

programme: plans, renovation management and studio interiors.

client: private commission

team: sophia los

collaborators: marta stocco, renza mara calabrese (wardrobe)

city/area: padua, Italy

status: completed, 2014

Renovation and interior design for a Chartered Accountants Firm in Padua. The interiors featured a big central area immersed in the dark, despite facing south and north. We decided to make the shadows work for us by laying a system of paths connecting the private offices and the conference rooms, creating a contrast between the sombre passageways and the much brighter offices. Taking our cue from the shot fabrics seen in Tiepolo’s frescos in The Chinese Room of The Foresteria of Villa Valmarana ai Nani, we chose two colours, two complementary shades: a blue-grey and a brick-red shade. We applied them to the walls, floors and ceilings to create the perception of a shot effect, of dynamic and relaxing tones.We entrusted the reception area to the art of Federica Agnoletto – Freak of Nature, offering a cheerful welcome to the clients, often coming to the accounting firm burdened by all their financial worries. The wardrobe is a Renza Mara Calabrese design. We gave particular importance to natural and artificial light in the office. We added large planters along the window walls, where we placed plants among some NASA deemed most effective in absorbing polluting agents.

photos: alberto sinigaglia

Giandomenico Tiepolo, The Chinese Room, The Foresteria of Villa Valmarana ai Nani, Vicenza, 1757. Detail

programme: plans, renovation management of a holiday home.

client: private commission

team: sophia los

collaborators: giovanni baron

city/area: sottomarina, Italy

status: completed, 2017

The project dealt with the renovation and the interior design for a holiday flat. The inside walls CalceCanapa (hemp & lime) lining, and subsequent limewashing optimised the internal healthiness of a humid space. The apartment had to be minimalistic, functional and bright. The corridors, like the stairwells and entrances, are transitional spaces, often dark and empty. Often, they are just the right spots to introduce splashes of colour, to make shadows colourful. In this instance, I suggested the corridor be like diving into the sea. The commissioners, however, did not like blue tints, so we picked variations of the colour green. The corridor features fitted wardrobes and doors. 

In the children’s room, a table was designed and illustrated by Davide Charlie Ceccon

Photos: Alberto Sinigaglia

programme: plans, renovation management of a flat in the city centre 

client: private commission

team: sophia los

collaborators: gianluca rosso, carlo zambonin (structures), cristian cipriotto

city/area: padua, italy

status: completed, 2018

Renovation of a flat in Padua’s historical city centre. The flat had been set up in the 1970s and needed a reconfiguration to fit the new owner’s needs. To better the inner micro-climate – Padua is often very damp – we insulated the walls with lime hemp, a natural material with excellent hygroscopic qualities, and then painted their surfaces with lime wash. All the materials had the goal of achieving a healthy, comfortable space. The new planimetric layout recalls the traditional palaces of Veneto, modernised and articulated around a central hall. This way, we provided ample and pleasant spaces and lovely ventilation in the summer.

programme: plans, garden and extension construction management.

client: private commission

team: sophia los, luca parolin (garden), carlo zambonin (structure)

collaborators: marta stocco

city/area: s. giorgio in bosco (PD), italy

status: completed, 2017

The intervention concerned the re-organisation of accesses, the garden layout and the extension of a country house, recently completed in keeping with the tradition of the Veneto “barchessa”. We started the project by studying the spaces, recognising the distinct identity of some recurrent figures in the agricultural Veneto landscape, where woodlands alternate meadows surrounded by shrubland (field maples, hazels, etc.). The intervention highlighted the pattern, then addressing the delicate matter of accesses. This often-overlooked issue contributes to public and private spaces promiscuity, a situation that is often uncomfortable for owners. The lack of hierarchy, space, and paths layout was a source of discomfort here too. We moved the entrance and re-designed the narration around the relationship between public roads and personal spaces.

In addition to avoiding this space promiscuity, the intervention allows us to unify the service area (entrances, car parks), freeing the living unit from that function. Next to the pergola at the entry, we planned to build an open portico to protect cars from exposure. Both elements, the pergola and the portico, are divided by a brick wall with a glass top. The pergola and portico pillars are set up to host climbing plants, so in time they will become green pillars, as per the rural Veneto tradition.

While the house features an especially pleasant garden, it was introverted, making the external space harder to use. For this reason, we decided to build an eastern extension reminiscent of traditional orangeries. The trapezoidal glassed volume faces the garden, like a dining room in the greenery. The addition of the new volume gives the right proportion to the eastern front, previously much higher. The greenhouse faces both south and east and is designed according to solar geometry. As such, it contributes to the building heat requirements in winter like a passive greenhouse. The northern side, protected and glassed on the top only, enables natural summer ventilation. The teak floor works in continuity between inside and outside.

programme: design and costruction site managment of the chapel

client: privato

team: sophia los, sergio los

city/area: marostica, italy

status: completed 1993

A private chapel dedicated to Santa Rita, inside the S. Maria Assunta Parish Church of Marostica (Vicenza, Italy). Appointment for a Renewal project and for works management Altar mat created by Renata Bonfanti.

My debut on a construction site while still a student, this little project was inspired by the Venetian, 14-15th century sacred painting’s iconography and was meant to make the majolica altarpiece donated to the community by a local businessman as a votive offering available to those attending the Church.

“Our design originates from the idea of a glossy and bright space, like the inside of a shell, and therefore rounded at each edge, where to keep the precious altarpiece, which thus appears suspended in a sizzles setting. A wooden pew marks the distinction between the sacred area, illuminated whit soft, diffuse light, and the one reserved for the congregation.

on the other hand, the glossy and precious material of the bas-relief comes to meet us, taking on the opaque and dense appearance of earth through the texture of a rug woven according to a simple repeated pattern.

Like a prayer, the long strip of cloth once again opens a dialogue that the pew had only apparently closed and fills the gap between man and God, as prayer permits us to do.

And if we look in our memory we will find something familiar in the architectural composition of the Chapel, as well as in the rug which in Christian iconography always moves timidly towards the observer, like an invitation and reassuring promise of salvation.”

photo: Giustino Chemello

renata bonfanti – tessitura come mestiere

programme: plans and shop renovation management.

client: focus

team: sophia los

city/area: bassano del grappa (VI), italy

status: completed, 1996

The Focus shop renovation was a big bet. I had recently graduated when the owner – my dear friend Romano Zanon’s father – trustingly put his shop into my hands. Situated in Piazza Libertà in Bassano del Grappa, the establishment was a staple for porcelain and crystalware, known in the whole of Northern Italy and frequented by educated and elegant customers. The challenge was re-using the existing unmatched shelving units and finding a coherent design to layout the products in a new and orderly way. First of all, I moved the entrance to the side, making use of the small portico outside, allowing people to linger by the shop window, and suggested a path among the various types of merchandise inside. Alongside pear and oakwood, I chose three recurrent shades as backdrops to the product layouts, alternating the wood with textiles from the Renata Bonfanti workshop. I singled out a shelving system, separating the structure and the front, allowing me to uniform the furniture, old and new. Many years later, the “Maschera” bookshelf, designed for Morelato, came to life from this initial concept. The lighting placed between the front and back structure by the owner proved an excellent solution. When we completed the works, the owner said to me: “I never understood, Sophia, whether you accepted this difficult job because you are brave or because you are crazy”. After 55 years of activity, the shop moved into new premises managed by Romano in 2011, just a few hundred metres away from the original site.

programme: preliminary, final and executive plans and construction site management

client: università degli studi di udine

team: sophia los, gianluca rosso

city/area: udine, italy

status: completed, 2011

Project enhancing the excavations of the protohistoric burial mound of S. Osvaldo in Udine.

Designing an archaeological site is both a great honour and a great responsibility. Architecture is a discipline grounded in the skill to listen to the location, to nature, to history, to culture and people. The shape and the building emerge as a result of this. In our case, we were dealing with a burial ground, an inviolable site, immersed in the silence of a life returning to the landscape. Specifically, the exterior was a tumulus, a small hill that time had covered in grass. There were no other similar examples: this was the first instance of a burial mound rebuilt and made accessible to visitors. The tumulus lies in S. Osvaldo in the southern outskirts of Udine, within the property of the University’s Experimental Farm laying before the Psychiatric Hospital. The construction had to be easy to make and be inexpensive while also not overpowering the archaeological structure. If possible, it had to be inconspicuous. It needed to be safe and accessible to visitors without overlooking the respect due to the buried. We came up with the idea to raise the ground, using an up-and-over door that provides shelter while diffusing the light. When the site is closed to visitors, nothing is visible but a bent surface cut on the hillside, like a wooden rug. The project includes the footpath to the entrance of the mound, acting as an introduction to the visit. It creates the necessary distance of space and time for experiencing the encounter with protohistory. The visitors can explore the tumulus by climbing on top, walking around and finally inside it as part of a narrative journey tying together the site with its surroundings. The wooden surface facilitates the climb and doubles as a dry seat. This way, we strengthened the sense of a solid volume morphing into the landscape rather than of a separate building.

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The project was presented at the AIAPP national symposium “Paesaggi e archeologie” (“Landscapes and Archaeology”) on 7^th  June 2013 at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Naples.

programme: preliminary plans, internal feasibility study, final plans of the inner courtyard.

client: kurtin farm

team: sophia Los, gianluca rosso, filippo piovene (phase two)

collaborators: giovanni baron, andrea marin (structures)

city/area: cormons (GO), italy

status: ongoing

The practice has been involved in this project since 2017, handling the general redefinition of the whole complex (2017), then beginning the first set of interventions in the production courtyard inside (2020). The project is ongoing, adapting to new needs and possibilities that arise over time as completion progresses.

The Kurtin winery began as a farm, starting from a stone house – now demolished – and other farm annexes integrating other extensions over time. A centuries-old oak – like a guardian – captures your attention and stands next to the cellar’s entrance. The project intends to highlight some pre-existing elements of the site that are not currently visible, only waiting to be discovered.

First of all, one has the sensation of entering a “borgo” (medieval farm). This articulated configuration, unlike that of a single object, has become the project’s central theme. The project expresses this theme by organizing three “squares” surrounded by buildings: the production court to the east, the reception court with a belvedere to the west connecting to the third court on the lower level by a staircase.

Observing the “borghi” castles, and strongholds typical of the Gorizia Hills, we can find some recurrent elements: small settlements on top of the hills and towers rooted in the slopes, like vertical elements acting as a counterpoint to the soft shapes of the hilly countryside.

Here in the valley, a turret will signal the “borgo’s” presence, becoming its fundamental vertical axis. The old house, still made of stone, is presented anew, now slightly moved to function as a door unifying the estate on the mountainside with the newly acquired valley side.

Walking alongside the turret, you reach the cellar entrance, a low horizontal building characterized by simple, white volumes: the centre of attention here is the wine, not the architecture.

For this project, we brought in Davide Charlie Ceccon to design the wine labels presented at Vinitaly 2019. 

programme: “a state-of-the-art territory” – a multidisciplinary project for the definition of urban guidelines

client: confartigianato vicenza

team: sophia los, sergio los, claudio bertorelli, centro studi udine

collaborators: n. covre, e. lorenzetto, l. parolin, e. bottin, f. dal toso, c. dal molin, daria petucco, i. visentin

city/area: sr11 – Vvcenza, italy

status: completed, 2012

To mark the new provincial urban plan, Confartigianato commissioned a pilot project to devise strategic guidelines for sustainable environmental, entrepreneurial and urban development. The Regional Road 11, as a case study, is the only portion of territory for which the Provincial Plan has considered a dedicated masterplan. 

actions:

– Pursuing the multifunctionality of the land while gradually weakening the market street quality.

– Seeing the SR11 territory no longer as a linear element of separation but a sequence of nodes. The act of giving it back to the dimension of living, or in other words, “re-integrating” it into the wider environment to which it belongs.

– Re-building a latent landscape through the continually balanced inter-relation between human settlement systems and agropolitan and periurban agricultural systems.

– Granting agricultural territories and their related activities a fundamental role (currently very limited) in the process of land re-qualification.

– The substantial collaboration between municipalities and the constant involvement of social actors.

– Activating strategic planning tools across municipalities while evaluating the use of the new set of instruments as provided by the regional law 11/04 (equalisation, credit and compensation). 

Presentation at the Villa Cordellina Lombardi.