Casa B
B house is an apartment located in an apartments block building upon a hill on the back of the village of Monterosso al Mare (Cinque Terre).
It is a small flat, just 30 sqm, and at the beginning it was divided into not so well designed living spaces: a bedroom without window, a closed kitchen in the middle of the house, and a too big bathroom.
Two windows on the same side bring the light inside, one is also a door that connects the interior with a small balcony, both windows are characterized by a stunning panorama of the whole coastline.
The renovation had to accomplish the following starting requests: to adapt the interior space to a new tourist purposes for up to four people, limit construction work as much as possible and comply with a limited budget.
The first step was to optimize the original internal spaces, enlarging the living area at the expense of the service spaces.
The kitchen volume was cut out and the bathroom was reduced to the minimum necessary for a good use. The second aim has been to further optimize the internal spatiality trough the new perception of the bathroom and kitchen seen as not just service spaces.
The bathroom and the kitchen are now displayed along the same boundary wall inside a blue tiled volume, lower than ceiling.
The blue solid runs trough the living space to end up in the bedroom on the one hand and develop into the bathroom on the other.
The solid is separated from the close walls by two glass doors, these doors allow to the blue volume to bring the natural light and the view of the sea into the deepest parts of the house.
The bedroom is divided from the living by a wall, which is also lower than ceiling this is to amplify the light and air penetration. A custom designed wooden cabinet close the corner of the bedroom volume, it is also another door to the room.
Thanks to the possibility of a direct connection between bedroom and bathroom trough the two glass doors, the living room can be used as an additional bedroom for two people.
In the apartment there is no other furniture aside from a table, four chairs, one bed and a sofa.
The blue solid increases its meaning also thanks to that choice.
It is the measure of the internal space, and it beats the time of the daily life, the blue solid is an abstract, geometric, modular image of something known: the traditional architecture, the remainder of a quiet modernity, the reflection of the sea.
