Periurban Garden

The project redesigns the open spaces of a residence in Cesena’s periurban countryside. It comprises two main areas of intervention: the area around the house, completed in 2021, and the adjacent apple orchard, which we have proposed gradually transforming from productive into an orchard garden once the family seniors stop working the land as a farm. Regarding the first area, the fulcrum consists of a kitchen garden and a solarium with a swimming pool. The design proposal combines the place's specificity and the client's needs, reinterpreting the open spaces as a garden in dialogue with the surrounding agricultural landscape.

The garden structure revokes the traditional pattern of vegetable or medicine gardens organized by simply arranged planted beds. The project has defined the plant species in the frame sectors, while the central part, properly a vegetable garden, is planted and cultivated directly by the landlords, according to a design philosophy that intends to provide a clear compositional layout on the one hand and to leave space for customization and flexibility of use on the other hand.
The swimming pool and vegetable garden appear cut out like two slots within a continuum of architectural surfaces—a terracotta flooring system of handmade tiles laid according to traditional techniques—whose material uniformity emphasizes the spatial concept. The pool area has been designed in a strongly integrated relationship with the kitchen garden to create spaces in sequence, an optical device through which to look out towards the fields and the river.

—We showcase the garden as it manifests its tranquil beauty in the rarefied atmosphere of the winter season—