Can you please tell me shortly about the project, and your thoughts behind it?

“Villae Minimae” (Small Villas in ancient latin, plural) is a collection of five isolated single-family villas that were developed and studied at a 1:200 scale. In all five cases, the projects were designed as ‘appendices,’ or as additions detached from larger properties but located in the immediate vicinity of those project sites. Thus, the villas never contain more than two bedrooms, and interior spaces are minimalisic. Beyond to pure functionality, we were explicitly requested to think of these projects as artifacts, or as machines for observing the landscape.

 How have you done the images? Is it renders or photographs, with a building cropped into it? Does the houses exist in real life?

We just made photomontages, they don’t exist in real life… Yet.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe once said: “Most of our projects were developed long before there was the practical possibility of achieving them [...] I only do this in the hope that one day the building is inhabited and enjoyed. “

The Villas, are presented with a selection of drawings: two sketches, a diagram, floor plans, elevations, sections, and renders.

Where from came your inspiration and idea for the project?

All in all, I believe that my inspiration was Villa Malaparte in Capri. The Villae Minimae reflect the dream of being Adalberto Libera and making such a masterpiece in such a stunning landscape.

What would you like to say with this project?

I would like to show a “modus operandi”. (A way to do things).

All projects are based on the distortion of a simple geometric figure; each distortion is a device designed to correspond to a panoramic view from the interior space, framing nature and allowing for contemplation of the landscape. This characteristic underlines the iconography of the projects: the dichotomy between nature and edifice.

How do you hope and think people will react when looking at these images?
The projects have in common a provocative and utopian approach.

I’m expecting a reaction but don’t forget that this work is also very Ironic: given their conceptual nature, these projects occupy the border between case study and divertissement.

Can you tell me shortly a bit about yourself?

Sure: I was born in Rome 34 years ago. I studied in Italy and in the netherlands at the TU Delft, and got my phd in the university “la sapienza”. I’m a big fan of Bob Dylan.