DATA SHEET
Architecture and Interior design: AMAA collaborative achitecture office for research and aevelopment
Custom wooden furnishings: Zuffellato 1933
Lighting: Viabizzuno, JUNG
Marble: Pibamarmi
Brass cladding and details: De Castelli
Fabrics: Tecnotenda
Windows: Fiorotto Design
Photo credits: Simone Bossi, Mikael Olsson
Three years were needed to complete the 5m x 5m walled box inserted within a small, early 20th-century apartment in Arzignano, near Vicenza – an apartment first stripped of its internal partitions. The client, seeking a weekend retreat from the daily grind, readily embraced AMAA‘s vision: not only an unusual spatial arrangement but a total upending of compositional norms.
This approach draws inspiration from the experimental living structures of Modernist masters like Prouvé, Le Corbusier, and Perriand. The insertion, a square-based parallelepiped, occupies almost the apartment’s entire footprint, intentionally misaligned with the perimeter walls.
This deliberate tactic creates a play of spatial expansions and surprise, prompting one to circulate the volume until reaching the single side of parallelism. This corresponds to the kitchen, where two windows open onto a balcony overlooking the street below. This dynamically out-of-scale element is juxtaposed with the restored walls and a floor adorned with a stunning Palladian terrazzo. For this container-like treasure chest called Golden Box, studio founders Alessandra Rampazzo and Marcello Galiotto employed artisanal techniques, crafting custom frames and meticulously detailed mockups to conceal joints and fixings. They also collaborated with De Castelli to develop an etching and fixing method for the brass sheets forming the structure’s envelope.
Consequently, the interior spaces, now hidden, now revealed, accommodate all necessary functions: kitchen, sleeping area, bathroom, and relaxation zone. The dominant hue is a single color, green – a nod to the copper roof of Michelucci’s church in Arzignano – expressed through verde imperiale marble in the bathroom and kitchen, as well as textured paint, fabrics, and velvet.
