Casa ADR

Casa ADR occupies the first floor of a late nineteenth-century building later converted into a tobacco factory. Its proportions hold two times together: the domestic measure of a home and the austere breadth of a productive space.

Six bays define the central room. In five, concealed LEDs turn the vaults into softly lit surfaces; the sixth opens to the sky through a large skylight. On the cruciform columns, strengthened with reinforced render and finished in cement, light becomes a fine line. Timber flooring runs continuously through the rooms, bringing warmth beside cement and dark furnishings.

Before the finishes, the construction site exposed the building’s anatomy: walls, beams and service routes. Strengthening the columns, installing underfloor heating, reconstructing the vaults in plasterboard and laying the timber floor gradually brought the house back together. Here, light builds space as much as matter does.

The project was realised through a close collaboration with architect Elio Resta.