ziano

a design for a small apartment in a 250+ year old building

situated in northern italy in the region of trentino this is an area famous for its fine quality timber including stradavarius violins and its year round sports culture. the apartment will respect the historic nature of the centre of this small town while providing a warmth and cosiness through the use of natural materials and changing ceiling heights. the photos immediately below show how it has turned out with us moved in (including tt and vino)! this is followed by a selection of photos and drawings showing the process of renovating an old building in the historic zoned centre

note: all work and photos relating to my architecture has been produced by me and as such copyright remains with wyattdesign

scrolling through below gives an idea of the challenges involved and the process from start to finish as i made notes on the journey.

since june 2007 it has been a process of negotiation, firstly with our neighbours in order to make sence of the old way the building has been divided up. we have had to compromise some parts and them as well. we are now on the way with this with an agreement and now just the submission of the final plan to go into to be registered and signed off - but its not easy going from talk to a signature on the paper. we had to change our planner from a hopeless individual that was always trying to say he knew what to do when he plainly didn't and tried to play us off against our nieghbours to a guy who has become a great friend of ours and could calmly get all of us together to come up with a resolution. so after 7 months of very little progress he could get all of us moving in the same direction (and their were 4 different groups of neighbours to coordinate).

with this being historic centre we have been subjected to some pretty strict regulations on what we can do with the external appearance (ie nothinig new). The idea is noble but the way the town commune (council) goes about this is a bit random. our neighbouring building has had huge balconies at roof level put in place and for us they are saying no to anything external at all. it is like this in italia and it certainly pays to know somebody in the right place! the planning process started late 2007 and has continued right through 2008 and finally at the beginning of 2009 we are ready to start to building although that is only after a heft demolition process.

our wedding (anto and jono) in april 2009 meant we had the opportunity to show some guest around where there were vast piles of rubble and essentially just a huge open space waiting for something to be built.

now you can see the construction sequence from the following montages below, to show how the work is going. it is not easy working in a 250+ year old building and things need to be done carefully - with the structure able to support itself while floors, and walls are removed. first the buildings underground vaults are reinforced, then new floors poured with supporting columns and a ringbeam to tie all the old external walls in place. Extra tricky is getting vertical elements in the right place because the chimney from the neighbour downstairs must pass through our part and likewise our plumbing and electrics must go down through theirs.

rogress on site: the demolition phase, then constructing the concrete floors inside the old walls including massive concrete footings in the cellar (far right)

we have used the under roof space that previously was not inhabited as our bedroom and bathroom plus we are going to open up two areas to have a balcony area upstairs. from the photos you can see antonella looking on as we build up the new walls to meet the old roof. we leave the old roof on as long as possible to protect the work but have already cut through a hole to bring in materials with the crane. the old roof construction was quite unique where a 25metre wide truss spanned between three of our properties. we had to build a new column right from the basement rising up 4 floors (12 metres) to support the new roof structure. the photo below shows a glimps of the masses of new steel reinforcing we had to install.

in the space of a month the old roof goes and a new one goes on. the building is completely wrapped in scaffolding and the guys from rovereto who installed the roof like a kitset jigsaw did a great job. just don't let health and safety see them running up and down the beams! amazing. it's a nice feeling being up so high and having all that open space, but the new roof had to go on - it could have made a great roof top tennis court!

the scaffolding finally came off after about 6months to reveal how the new(old) building will look with the new plaster. a project in a country with different rules and a different way of doing things is challenging so i have had to learn some italian building terminology fast! but it's great to see finally a more finished look after 8 months of work. rom august the plumbing, heating and electrical systems will need to be installed, stairs constructed on 3 levels and a new balcony. from may 2010 we can we start to think about windows, kitchens and bathrooms and room finishes!

free of scafolding for the first time in 6 months! and just before the winter. the windows, shutters and plastering for the bottom are still be completed

as of spring 2010 (that is european spring) we have ploughed ahead with some more building and it's nice to see the progress coming along. we had the good idea to do a garage into the cellar (where there is the small window (left photo). neighbours were not too happy (they thought we were coming in with a noisy lamborghini or something similar at 2 o'cock in the morning) and we had a lot of luck to get the permission to do this from the local council so we have blasted a big hole in the wall. the first look at electrics is now happening as of june 2010 and it's a crazy system but all the electrical wires have to be installed in plastic tubes that need to be cut into the clay blocks by hand so we spend months building walls and now i have to spend hundreds of hours bashing these walls apart again to install the wiring and plumbing.

cellar being plastered and heating tubes going in and the work reinstating the paving outside - it's may 2010, will we be finished by may 2011?

still making progress, toppinng concrete has gone on to cover all the heating pipes and tiles are starting to be laid then we have the wood oven almost finished and our holes in the house will be filled up by windows and doors at the end of august 2010. starting to feel more like a house at long last! cellar cum garage is starting to be a bit more organised after some summer floods left us with a foot of water in there! finished before winter? we hope so! (sadly not and it's april 2011 - Jw). the interior is looking like a blank canvas all white and waiting for some finishing. we will try to make it more textural without too many strong colourings. the rough stone contrasting with smooth wooden floors and metallic effect tiles. we will see if it works! the plastering seemed to go well at the time but long after they had gone we can see the walls are not so straight and true and they tried to rip us off with the cost of the cellar space. we paid more then we were supposed to but they still left here in a big huff. some wood work is now going with a small mezzanine area for storage that we can use. it has to be supported by a steel beam and we left it in view much to the amazment of the italians! red doors and window shutters give a nice punch of colour to the exterior.

painting and getting underway with the fitout. kitchen joinery, two bathrooms and bedroom/corridor dividing cabinetry all go in. me in the cellar all through the winter to reinstate the old stone cellar walls to make them look presentable plus two mosaics on the floor - a tiki and koru fern give a bit of kiwi in the italian alps.

the images here open from the thumbnails and were taken from march 2011 until may 2011. they now show the house in a semi finished state - finishes are in and the dreaded cleaning begins!