TRA Studio, supergreen loft

The new residence takes form in a 19th-century block, which after damage caused by bombing in 1944 was converted for the use of Torrefazione Deorsola - a well-known coffee supplier in Turin. Today, after an honorable industrial career, the place becomes a contemporary loft.

Coping with rather rigid regulations, the project pragmatically creates an interior that is elegant but also practical and flexible at the same time; the goal was to make a welcoming, informal dwelling where privacy can easily coexist with socializing. The logistical aspect was also very important: the house had to serve as a strategic center of gravity for the local and global journeys of the two architects, whose time is packed with various academic and professional commitments.

Therefore the old coffee factory has been reborn as an introspective space, “without views and hidden from view,” the architects explain, “composed of two white apartments bordered by glazings with iron frames; one for us parents, one for our two children.” The internal spaces are organized in a ductile way, exploiting heights that in the living area reach four meters, for the insertion of lofts: three as bedrooms and a fourth, larger platform as a canopy that encloses the kitchen.

The project – strictly a duo effort – comes to terms with multiple needs and desires: family life, energy savings, the pleasure of a small walled garden, privacy, the taste for materials and artifacts of an industrial past, combined with modern vintage furnishings.

The approach is ‘adventurous’ but without overdoing it: the available volumes have been nimbly reshaped, paying close attention to quality of life and details, like the industrial wood paneling and the casements, always using natural colors and textures, the large bookcases, objects of affection, the open kitchen, the floors in textured concrete.