leyla's villa

Briefing

Hi there, we’ll be renovating a house on the outskirts of Milan, and we would like to have some ideas on how to approach it. The house is in serious disrepair, so the renovation will be a complete one, that is, apart for the main perimeter walls, the rest is to be redone anew. Attached are two pdf files, one referring to the ground floor and one to the first floor. The house has a garden all around it. The ground floor has garage box space, which we would leave in place: its room is relatively biggish, but it’ll be used also for garden tools stowage, maybe a technical small place for the gas heater or whatever heating system we end up using (we haven’t really thought about it yet, we only know the house is going to be heated by new, low-temperature, money saving radiant floor heat). Apart from garage box, the ground floor should have: a kitchen, a small bathroom and a living room. Note that there’s room to build a little more room as indicated in the drawing, not very large, probably between 15 and 20 square meters, so we included it on the ground floor. We have added some distances in the drawing to give you a sense of the scale, respectively 9.26 mts and 6.70 mts. We’d like an open kitchen into the living room but with the option of closing it with some glass or sliding doors. If possible, direct access from the kitchen to the garage and to the garden and also from the garden to the living room. A likely entrance, given that the street access is from that side, is the one indicated on the drawing. If you have other ideas, it’d be interesting to hear them out. Lastly, well, we need some stairs to walk up to the first floor. The first floor is about 150 square meters large: it should have at least 3 rooms, a washing room (washing machine, dryer and some room to hang the clothes..maybe with sun exposure?), 2 bathrooms and either a 4th room or a playspace for the kids. The main room will also have a walking closet. In theory, one of the two bathrooms is for the parents and the other is for the kids’ two rooms, but not a must. There’s an option for a second floor as well, depending on the budget. The second floor, around 150 square meters, if done, will have sloping height, so assume the highest to be 3 meters, sloping down to 1.5 meters towards the outer walls. It should have: another guest room plus an office plus a bathroom plus a free space you can draw/imagine as you like. We’d also like a terrace up there, so you can assume, I don’t know, between 20 and 50 square meters for a terrace, depending on how you see it. Approach: the single most important feature of the house is going to be the light. That is, we want to bathe it in light, especially the ground floor and the second floor. Use glass or whatever enhances the natural lighting. Please do not feel constrained by the current position of the windows (which we have highlighted with a “W” in the drawings): they can be closed and reopened wherever you feel. Both drawings include the North-South direction: please make full use of it, that is, no terrace looking North, thanks. Style: we like modern furniture with a modern approach to living home space. Generally speaking, we think the ground floor (I mean, the tiles) is going to be clear shaded, with darker or colored furniture for contrast. Am sure we are forgetting something: please contact us for any clarification (we speak fluently English, Spanish and Italian). We are looking forward to pick a winner! Many thanks,

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