Brick house over an old stone barn

Before the restoration the villa was considered of low architectural value. That was mainly due to a previous overbuild from the 20th century, which had been constructed with concrete blocks set on top of the original stone walls. As a first step, these concrete blocks were stripped down to unveil the original section, which was topped up with a new extension built from exposed clay brick. In keeping with the regional tradition, the walls were whitewashed in order to give the whole building a uniform appearance, despite the two different materials remaining visible. Nonetheless, to lessen the contrast, the clay bricks were laid only as stretchers in a seemingly disordered way to form slight projections and recesses. This gives the wall a striking surface appearance thanks to the interplay of light and shadow.