4 design principles:

PLACED IN CONTEXT

The intervention establishes a direct relationship with the existing villa and its garage. Rather than avoiding this proximity, the project engages in a careful dialogue through precise placement and controlled geometry. The existing building remains clearly legible, while a limited number of measured actions enhance its functionality and spatial qualities, reinforcing continuity between old and new. 

RELATIONSHIP WITH A MASTER

On the relationship between this new addition and Gropius’s philosophy, the guiding principle is to learn from the lessons that contemporary architecture has inherited from the Bauhaus, rather than mimicking a style. Materials are used with honesty, shown rather than masked, chosen and shaped to allow them to express their true nature. Another key aspect is the embrace of transformation, translated into the possibility of reconfiguring the space: fully opening the garage during the summer months and closing it in winter, while maintaining a strong connection to the surrounding landscape. The result is a pavilion that changes its appearance and mode of use depending on the season and events

A LIGHT APPROACH

The project is conceived through a light approach, both materially and conceptually. It employs lightweight construction systems based on renewable resources, prioritizing sustainability and low embodied carbon. This strategy allows for a fast and economical construction process, making such an intervention on the site more feasible and less logistically straining for the association. On a psychological level, lightness becomes an expression of a different relationship with the surrounding environment: an acceptance of precariousness as a source of beauty, and a conscious distancing from permanence as a dominant value.

MORE WITH LESS

Working with the principle of “more with less,” the project maintains a limited footprint and a compact, unassuming volume, while extending its ambition beyond the mere fulfillment of the competition brief. The true focus of the design lies in the creation of a sequence of spaces, moments of transition, pause, and encounter, that quietly enrich the experience of the place. Without rhetoric or monumentality, the architecture seeks to convey kindness and dignity to its users and inhabitants.