New and Old are Merging Together!

Stone House Transformation
Project by Wespi de Meuron Romeo Architects

This is an example of a beautiful refurbishment of a stone village house in Scaiano, Switzerland.  Some of the traditional features were incorporated into the new design of the house.  Lots of concrete, wood and glass giving it a modern yet rustic feel in keeping with the original essence of the space.

The original substance of this historic stone house consists in a main building with a cellar with vault and two floors above with kitchen, living and sleeping spaces and a later added annex, also completely made in solid natural stone.

The stone walls were mainly maintained, just the joints had to be remade. The isolation is applied at the inside of the walls. All wooden beam floors were replaced with concrete floors, which reinforce the old walls additionally.

The main architectural target of the intervention was to carve out the force of the massive stonewalls and to gain this archaic simplicity of the volume of the historic building.

The glass façade in front the rooms, towards the lake, has been placed with a distance of about 60 cm from the old stonewalls. This glass front protects against the outside climate and it’s like a second skin behind the effective facade.

This concept allows on the one hand the authentic conservation of the historic stone façade, which tells the history of the house and on the other hand, it generates zenith light for the rooms with exceptional light reflections. It would not have been possible otherwise to get sunlight into the rooms, in such a village structure with narrow streets.

The new intervention is not contrasting the existing substance, new and old are merging together and creating a new ensemble!

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