Unical AG, S.p.a.

Villa Orizzonte

Villa Orizzonte
© Mariela Apollonio

Villa Orizzonte 

UNICA Architects

ARCHITECTS
Unica Architects

LEAD ARCHITECTS
Lorenzo Capucci, Riccardo Robustini

LIGHTING DESIGN
Venturelli Arte E Luce

LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Frassinago Garden & Landscape - Federico Ratta

LANDSCAPE CONTRACTOR
Frassinago Garden & Landscape

MANUFACTURERS
Linvisibile, Oikos, Antonio Lupi, B&b Italia, Boffi, Living Divani, Minotti, Porro, Salvatori, Skyframe, Talenti Outdoor, Viabizzuno

MEP
Edoardo Baroni - Team Engineering

CONTRACTOR
Impresa Edile Tasselli

COLLABORATOR
Giulia Arduini

AREA
785 M²

YEAR
2022

LOCATION
Ferrara, Italy

CATEGORY
Houses

Located in the Italian Pianura Padana, at the urban edge of a small country town facing a river, Villa Orizzonte blends in with the surrounding landscape seeking maximum integration with the environment, also thanks to its southward orientation and privileged view toward the river.

Villa Orizzonte
© Mariela Apollonio
Villa Orizzonte
© Mariela Apollonio

The new one-story villa gently respects the old footprint of an old demolished two-story rural house. It is conceived as an extensive line in an open landscape overlooking the river, its presence is mostly perceived horizontally rather than volumetrically, and its footprint integrates into the natural context as a powerful act of horizontality.

The roof was designed as the fifth façade of the building and it is equipped with a careful selection of solar panels and skylights in order to maximize the villa’s energetic performances.

The roof is the unifying element of all the volumes, it is designed with a balance of voids and solids that define the indoor and outdoor spaces, blending with the vegetation, letting the light filter in, and marking through its four voids the rhythm of the interior space.

Villa Orizzonte
© Mariela Apollonio
Villa Orizzonte
© Mariela Apollonio

The first roof perforation designs like a Roman atrium the courtyard entrance to the house, and the second void provides privacy to the bedrooms and hosts two suggestive Japanese Acer trees.

The third opening becomes a private patio for the master bedroom acting as an outdoor extension of the house; the fourth, almost as a cut in the roof, enlightens the corridor through a zenithal skylight.

Villa Orizzonte
© Mariela Apollonio
Villa Orizzonte
© Mariela Apollonio

The building is ideally divided into two functional boxes; the first box is completely stone-cladding and it hosts the service areas, the garage, and a small office.

The second volume, lighter, contains the kitchen and the living room, the three en-suite bedrooms, and a dining area surrounded by wide sliding glass doors that transform the house into a terrace open to the garden.

Villa Orizzonte
© Mariela Apollonio
Villa Orizzonte
© Mariela Apollonio

The whole building is conceived as a perforated box in which openings become small private courtyards, like domestic landscape episodes. Entering the house becomes a changing and pleasant promenade where volumes are visually connected and materials blend with vegetation.

The interior spaces are designed in order to provide the highest levels of comfort and privacy, flexibility, and visual fluidity. The suggestive suspended marble-clad fireplace strongly characterizes the living room and allows visual connection with the rooms and the patios. The outdoor porch connects the common areas of the house, and the sheet of water from the pool is a mirror for the façade, the sky, and the trees.

Fluidity is enhanced by the minimalistic window frames embedded into the walls which open the house outwards blurring its limits with the landscape. Water is used as a building material cooling the environment and visually extending the built surfaces.

The project of Villa Orizzonte is narrated at all scales in a homogeneous architectural language, each and every element is shaped through the same philosophy.

Villa Orizzonte
© Mariela Apollonio


Villa Orizzonte
Floor Plan

Unical AG, S.p.a.
T +39 0376 57001 F +39 0376 660556
Unical AG, S.p.a.
Via Roma, 123, 46033 Castel d'Ario MN, Italy