Monesiglio Palace
Residential building
The building occupies a small residual lot (about 500 square meters) placed between a dense built area characterized by the presence of a plurality of architecturally heterogeneous constructions, dating from the late 50s and the following decades. Cottage houses alternate with larger multi-storey buildings that characterize the built along corso Sebastopoli in the immediate vicinity. The front facing the street overlooks a green area destined to a park, belonging to the nearby municipal middle school, datable to around the end of the ’70s.
The project stems from the need, expressed by the building contractor, to modify the existing project – designed by another architect- adapting it to the new demands of the real estate market and to the cogent building regulations, currently being redefined, awaiting final approval of the new PRGC. The “acrobatic” exercise of distributive and formal redesign applied to a volumetry and architecture already approved, was particularly complex and intricate. The idea behind the project was born from the need to place the stairwell outside the building to increase the volumetry, suggested by a careful reading of building regulations.
The vertical access routes to the real estate units have determined the development of the distribution aspects of each apartment, which vary on each floor. The overall image of the building, outlined by the presence of the large metal portal that encloses the stairwell, is characterized by the overlapping of simple volumes: starting from the ground floor that opens entirely towards the garden, to continue to the upper floors with the inclusion of the lodges and the symmetrical presence of large curved balconies facing the east and west fronts. To crown the underlying “cube”, emerges the “materially” different volumetry of the attic floor with overhanging loft – entirely made of bricks – surrounded by the large perimeter terrace.