☉ AO winery is a proposal by Ellevuelle Architetti developed in 2012. It is located in Predappio Italy in an urban setting. Its scale is medium with a surface of 1.700 sqm. Key materials are concrete and wood.
The observation of Predappio hilly region suggests architectural forms that remind the hilly slopes; in this way we aim to obtain formal integration with the surroundings. The project prefers the concept of aggregation around the existing, creating a «new village» rather than sprawling on the territory; the area already reached by the services (water, electricity, sewerage) is implemented by new volumes thus avoiding waterproofing of other areas, dispersion of networks, land movements.
After the elimination of superfluous accretions of the rural house, the project consists of the insertion of a single building that, with its presence and use, clarifies the area, defining two spaces: a «labor court» and a “Belvedere court». The clutch is operated along the EastWest axis, thus not obstructing the view of the old house from the valley. The new volume does not want to emerge, indeed collimates in a first moment the natural slope that constitutes the southern limit of the intervention and then is connected with the ground itself.
The first court, the productive one, is enclosed on three sides; a shed for unloading the products to be processed it will settle on the southern front. The second court, the entertainment one, will be defined by the country house, by the tasting room, and on the other two sides by the view of the landscape. Between the two rooms take place another part of the mill area and one room for the workshops for tasting and preparation of food samples. It is emphasized the flexibility of the architecture that is in continuity (almost literally got stuck) with the preexistence, characterized by an irregular settlement system, made of misalignment and small rotations.
So you get a set of volumes, a cluster that – seen from above – can remember the narrow street of a village, of which is here searched the spontaneous aggregation. Each of these steps is associated with its own «small house»: the sequence will consist of minimal changes such as the changes of the slopes of the roof pitches, or the forward or the backward of the vertical surface of closure, or the inclination of a face, or the presence of a glass surface… Finally, we avoid the stiffness or the absence of compositional varieties of a unique artifact box.