“For me, the house should reflect the character of the people who live there, so the project always starts as a game of introspection and psychology,” Bianchini says. “I ask clients to make a folder with photographs of all the things they like, from spatial solutions to furniture and objects, to understand their sensibilities and what they expect. Specifically, the first contact with the clients took the form of a true request for help on Eirinn’s part, since she felt the need to combine the essential style of Norway with the typical rural architecture of the location, in a classic Gallura stazzo she and Renzo had purchased,” the architect recalls. “Well-defined geometric forms, games of light in dialogue with the changing seasons, have become the leitmotifs of the renovation. My objective was to bring out the expressive potential of the existing compact, abstract volume, recovering the Sardinian tradition of building but interpreting it with a timeless contemporary language, to reinforce the visual bond with the surrounding nature.

In other words, the project becomes a tribute to the manmade landscape, carried out with modernist rigor and pure forms, without indulging in vernacular imagery or the local rustic style. On a practical level, through subtraction of volume the building has been taken back to its original archetype, opening up the sequence of small rooms and windows in the layout and optimizing the double pitched roof. The result is a heightened sensation of lightness and freshness, and a sculptural effect clearly inspired by the projects of John Pawson and Gio Ponti. “The pitched roof had a thickness of just 8 cm, stiffened by an iron skeleton that extends in an overhang on both sides: towards the entrance, the sunscreens follow the same slope as the roof, while towards the verandas they look towards the sea,” the designer says. “This has made it possible to harness and shape the light, projecting patterns of shadow on the white concrete of the vertical surfaces. In a synthesis of balance and proportion, it also makes a refined effect of suspension of the architectural body perceptible, in the construction details of the overhanging terraces and in the graft of the building into the garden, by means of a black C-shaped upper profile.”

The project then developed in such a way that in the patio a concrete walkway would connect the main building with a fair-face reinforced concrete portal, the entrance to the volume of the annex set aside for guests: a house in its own right, complete with a living area, a bedroom, a mini-kitchen and bathroom. From here, by way of a cantilevered staircase, one reaches the solarium on the roof, where a black swimming pool appears with two infinity sides that mingle with the horizon of blue tones of the sea of Tavolara: with the impact of other special effects that return in the overall composition. The pale white and classic style of the exteriors, an archetype that is transformed into a new surprise, interacts with the interiors, with total white walls, resin floors and graphic elements designed by the architect, with a mix-and-match of objects that bring warmth, color and pleasure to the habitat, accentuating the effect of the large sliding glass doors facing the sea.