Submitted by Francesca Cuoghi

AgriCulture is the new balance. The house in the orchard.

Italy Architecture News - Jan 15, 2020 - 19:00   9440 views

AgriCulture is the new balance. The house in the orchard.

Once the great Roman orator Cicero stated: "If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need". This house fully represents this thought. This project is about a house in the middle of a vegetable garden near Pisa in Tuscany, Italy

In its various forms to live in a private house can express the desire to get back to a lost dimension.

This unusual architectural project has been developed by LDA.iMdA architetti associati. "It is not context, is not reinterpretation of tradition and not even search for lost figurative relationships," they said.

AgriCulture is the new balance. The house in the orchard.

"We want to fix the aspiration of a client's hobby:  to cultivate a vegetable garden, and we made it with a pure external form. This form owes its origin from the ancestral child's drawing of a house. The aim precedes the practice to put contemporary architecture in fragile territorial context in order to reactivate new potential relationships". 

This statement of "La Casa nell'Orto" masterpiece contains all the energies that the clients put into this realization, with particular regards to innovative choices:

- the external coating (covering wall continuity) was made applying an ecological polyolefin sheet  with high solar reflectance;

- the extremely poor structural technology usually used for greenhouses here adapted for the home;

- the internal floor covering is made by using anti-infiltration water resistance protective products on the prefabricated wood self-supporting panels (larch wood - polystirene - fir wood);

- the modular structure created by partializing the larger project (first project included interior space to be used as a winter garden or a greenhouse);

- to lift up the whole floor reducing the impact on the landscape, solving at the same time hydraulic problems;

- hosting events.

AgriCulture is the new balance. The house in the orchard.

What can be more appropriate during these years of stressful habits than to go and take refuge in the countryside? The idea behind this house is all about creating the right balance between contemporary lifestyle and nature.

AgriCulture is the new balance. The house in the orchard.

"This project is part of the research we are investigating for: how the figurative synthesis of an architecture is often recurrent in the architect's work, and how it can be an important element of investigation in finding answers or models for a contemporary fluid and dynamic society."

AgriCulture is the new balance. The house in the orchard.

We can find a strong natural inspiration. The prominence of white also reminds the nordic style. The importance of day light is fundamental too and the choice of the materials reveals the strict connection with the landascape and nature.

AgriCulture is the new balance. The house in the orchard.

Creating a unique environment without over doing it, is also one of the main achievement. The house perfectly expresses the balance without ever over decorating. The essential, the avoidance of extremes and a natural restraint in all things, is what gives this space its subtle elegance and extraordinary character.

AgriCulture is the new balance. The house in the orchard.


AgriCulture is the new balance. The house in the orchard.


AgriCulture is the new balance. The house in the orchard.


AgriCulture is the new balance. The house in the orchard.


AgriCulture is the new balance. The house in the orchard.


Credits go to: LDA.iMdA architetti associati

All images © MEDULLA studio