102
PERSPECTIVE
ARCHITECTURE
T2 House / Ferrara, Italy
103
PERSPECTIVE
Teach aman to fish
In learning to build his own home, Antonio Ravallideveloped an awareness of ‘sensitive architecture’
ilippo Guidi’s T2 house in Ferrara,Italy, tells a story about expandingarchitecture for the good of society. Notonly did Guidi accomplish a rectangularspace-conscious two-bedroom residence,he learned to build the house for himself withthe help of his friend Antonio Ravalli, founder ofAntonio Ravalli Architetti.Ravalli, through his architecture, interiors,and urban design firm, helped Guidi with hiscabin design. The incarnation of sustainability isa hybrid of Modernist inspiration and rusticmasculinity. Material selection required athoughtful process based on multiplechallenges. Site orientation demanded carefullyplanning. Ventilation was a labour of classicarchitecture practices. In the end, however,Ravalli not only helped his friend achieve agorgeous abode, he metaphorically taught aman to fish.Locally available materials such as laminatedtimber beams and copper shingles add aestheticvalue to the rural residence and help Guidi toachieve energy and economic efficiency. Theintrinsically irregular qualities of the shinglesmake a shocking impression upon first glance inthis rural area, yet upon second glance theyactually help the house to blend in with itsneighbors because of their very rustication.“It was also very important that the materials
text: nichole l reberphotography: courtesy of ravalli architetti
F
were easy to assemble, because the house was tobe built by the client himself, who didn’t possessprevious experience about construction,” saysRavalli. Not only was his friend the client, Guidialso wore the hats of bricklayer and builder,exemplary of the growing trend toward placingmore social value in architecture, permeating itsvalue beyond the bourgeois.“In times in which houses are becomingmore and more sophisticated, and in whichthere’s the need to call somebody to solve eventhe smallest technical problem, the almost totalknowledge of Filippo about his own home,having built it, is something which recallsancient ways and times,” says Ravalli.The T2 house might just exemplify whatJosé Gámez and Susan Rogers wrote in theiressay
An Architecture of Change
, found in thebook
Expanding Architecture
. In this, they say‘design does not have to be compromised in theprocess of serving the needs of others’.“The house introduced a ‘giving andreceiving’ relationship between thinking anddoing the project, since it was not only thedesigning approach that affected the way ofmaterially building it, but, in reverse, it was alsothe way of gradually realising it that influencedthe subsequent steps in the design process,”says Ravalli.“What we are trying to do is to produce a‘sensitive architecture’, in which this involvesthe five senses. The direction of the light at thesunset and its vibration through the leaves, thedifferent colours of the seasons, the sensationof the heat produced by the fireplace, are allfundamental elements. This approach comesfrom our personal aptitude, but we think thepresent day culture is paying more and moreattention about this kind of thing, and to a livelyrelationship with the environment.”Guidi used the excess lumber remainingfrom the home’s shell to construct his ownfurniture — the bed, for one, was made withsame wood found in the beams. Crossventilation is naturally built in to the home andundergirded by its orientation on the lot. “Manydesign aspects were determined by thepresence of the trees on the site and theirposition. The dialogue of the building with thelandscape, the relation between the inner spaceand the exterior, are a consequence of all thesechoices guided by sustainability concepts.“One of the most evident effects is thateach window faces a different tree of thegarden, with a different colour and a differentblossom period. The house is positionedbetween the trees so that they can proportionshadow in summer and create a greenhouseeffect in winter,” Ravalli says.Ceiling heights escalate from 2.5 to 4.2metres, which Ravalli designed for the dualpurposes of storage and ventilation — thebedroom and studio doors can remain open atthe higher part, thereby permitting air tocirculate freely throughout the whole house.
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