Nature is the protagonist of the March issue. An invitation to rediscover the pleasure of the outdoor dimension of the home: through architecture and design projects

Nature is the star of our issue to accompany the arrival of springtime, bringing the pleasures of the outdoor dimension of the home. We pay tribute with architectural projects that blur the boundaries between indoor and outdoor spaces with large windows and locally sourced materials, applied in tune with parameters of eco-sustainability.

Read also: Sustainability in design

Graphic Motion: Daniele Basilico

Architecture between interiors and exteriors

From the eastern coast of Sicily, where a boutique hotel is immersed in the Mediterranean vegetation of a marvelous nursery-garden, to the Sacro Monte of Varese, where four new station-aediculae created by Rampello & Partners reformulate a journey in the beauty of the Lombardy landscape. We then shift towards the hills of the Marches, with the charm of a villa sparked by a taste for California Modernism. And to Santa Marinella, north of Rome, for a seaside villa designed in the 1950s by Luigi Moretti: a timeless architectural promenade in search of positive relations between nature and artifice.

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The illustration by Francesco Zorzi introduces us to the ‘third dimension’ of the home: a space that is neither inside nor outside, where two atmospheres merge in a single habitat. The expressive potential of this novel dimension is epitomized in the new Poliform outdoor collection designed by Jean-Marie Massaud, Emmanuel Gallina, Marcel Wanders and Soo Chan, which includes the Ketch armchairs and sofas with a structure in solid iroko wood, and a back in EVA olive, matched with the Ketch tables with tops in fused bronze glass.

A new design approach

In the countries of Northern Europe, ‘free-air living’ is recognized as a human right, and becomes the subject matter of degree programs inside universities. The objective is to develop a new design attitude, where different disciplines interact to imagine a society more closely connected to nature. We talked about it with the Norwegian studio Snøhetta, whose work has always been conducted in tune with the landscape.

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View of the villa on the hills of the Marches, designed by M3Progetti, in dialogue with the surrounding natural setting. Photo courtesy of Vito Corvasce.

New outdoor furniture

In this cultural context, the domestic dimension expands outward in totally novel ways: this can be seen in the overview of new outdoor furnishings – explained by their designers – where the resulting space is neither inside or outside, but blends two different atmospheres into a single habitat. A space in which the house incorporates nature and the environment contaminates interiors, generating fertile ground for research and experimentation in the world of design.

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