This house was designed in parallel with a more complex project, which consists in the refurbishment and transformation of an old agricultural complex (with around 2.5 hectares) into a rural tourism unit. The main gesture of this first intervention is to establish relationships with the rest of the property. The proposal takes the methodological side of the minimal gesture, making use of the stone and wood structure of the existing house and an adjoining building. The controlled deconstruction of a stone wall allows two new generous openings to be opened onto the landscape. A new lightweight metal structure redraws the boundaries of the entrance courtyard, around which the different spaces of a single-storey house now gravitate.

Inside the main house, a cut-out in the existing wooden structure transforms the second floor into a mezzanine that extends the social space of the house around a double-height ceiling. The bedrooms occupy the ruin of the old annex building, which will be completed with a new wooden roof structure. Its walls will be filled in and reinforced with a new concrete wall, on which the old fenestration will be printed in bas-relief. Two new windows provide light and ventilation to the room, reinterpreting the design of the old sash windows.

As far as color is concerned, the choice of red refers to a careful but unusual reading of the pre-existence. Although the wooden shutters and framings of the house were originally green, they were “painted” red by the wear and tear of time. Therefore, the choice of red no longer refers to the original color, but rather to the color “as found”, which happen to be a color we particularly appreciate. The whole project was an exercise on ambiguity.