A once “jaded”, 200-year-old farmstead in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy has been reimagined by Jonathan Tuckey Design, a UK-based design and architecture practice with an inspired approach to combining old and new.
We spoke to the project architect, Elena Aleksandrov, about “elegant appropriation”, a method she’s employed to gently restore the whimsical character of this secluded site.
“We discovered the house in a jaded state,” Elena recalls.
The brief from the client—a fashion designer and naturalist—was simple: “to rediscover the property’s agrarian soul and establish a connection to the beautiful surrounding landscape.”
The crenellated brickwork brings the centuries-old stone facade into the 21st-century.
“Our challenge was to rediscover [the building’s] character and a relationship with the landscape by opening up the facades, stripping back finishes, and blurring the definition between inside and outside, old and new,” Elena says.
The “textural beauty” of the lime-washed stone facade has been rediscovered.
Instead, their job was to reimagine “the hierarchy” between existing spaces, “creating visual corridors between the different levels of the former building and between the inside and outside.”
On the ground floor, the existing staircase was turned 90 degrees to improve circulation.
From the entrance hall, guests step down into the lowered ground floor, which leads to an understated home spa and sauna.
Part of the lower ground floor is set under original vaulted brick ceilings, which have been painstakingly restored by local craftsmen.
The ground floor layout has been reorientated to give the living spaces the best views of the garden and sun-soaked valley.
New apertures and enlarged existing windows frame verdant views from within the home, capturing shifting light throughout the day.
Given the high number of tiles found beyond repair, we decided to use an ancient technique used by the Romans in which crushed clay tiles are mixed with soil to make a waterproof finish layer called cocciopesto for the floors and walls.
The cocciopesto “rug” in the home spa.
A local palette of chestnut wood and Luserna stone features throughout the interiors.
In the bathrooms, details include milk white tiles, circular mirrors, brass wall lamps, and carved solid Arabescato Vagil marble basins.
Set behind the brick breeze screening is a passage that leads to the upper floor hayloft.
The top floor of the barn conversion.
“With the original barn roof structure we decided that, with thoughtful timber engineering and layering new components, a new roof could be formed above the skeleton of the former, providing insulation and structural stability.”
The new floating roof structure is highly insulated and clad in sheets of local chestnut timber that gently diffuse light throughout the studio.
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Cascina’s sprawling, sloping gardens are thoughtfully organized by a series of dry stone retaining walls and grassy terraces bordered with native planting.
Cascina: “A house that is harmoniously tied to its ever-changing natural context,” The walls also conceal a slender swimming pool with adjoining outdoor kitchen.
Jonathan Tuckey has described Cascina as “a house that is harmoniously tied to its ever-changing natural context”—a fitting description of a project that cleverly straddles both the seasons and the centuries.