Wildfarm, Volterra, Italy
Architectural firm Studio Milani utilised exterior lighting fixtures from Goccia Illuminazione to highlight a beautiful private residence nestled in the Tuscany countryside.
Tuscany is a region known for its outstanding natural beauty. While the area’s culture, food, wine and local crafts are cornerstones of its appeal, the true essence of the territory is rooted in nature and history. It therefore offers a fertile ground to an architecture enhancing these intrinsic characteristics.
The chance of redesigning a building in the context of the Tuscan countryside was therefore incredibly appealing to architectural firm Studio Milani. At the Wildfarm project in Volterra, in the Val di Cecina area of Tuscany, the firm harnessed exterior lighting from Goccia Illuminazione to harmonise the dialogue between the modern residence and the existing house in its landscape.
A small, compact rural stone unit within an area suspended between woodlands and olive trees, with the sea on the horizon, is the backdrop to this restoration and extension project on the land of a small farm in the area surrounding Volterra.
The rocky outcrops and stones scattered over the hilly terrain inspired the concept of extending the small structure, as well as the material and technological approach used to construct the substructures of the underground levels. The loose stones became the structure, clearly carving out the two newly constructed prismatic monoliths, which are joined to the existing unit through transparent connectors in corten steel and glass.
The garden is an additional protagonist in this material narrative that accompanies the passage between the various facets within the property, along the north-south axis, and defines a sinuous bank of river pebbles that house groups of rigid metal and travertine lines in the opposite direction.
The bank of pebbles and herbaceous plants, extending into a beach strewn with large, rounded rocks beside the pool, comes alive from the end of winter to the end of summer with mid-height shrubs in varying colours. The green and grey shades of the leaves also vary, along with the blooms.
The outdoor lighting follows the architectural concept with specific types of illumination according to the nature of the project to emphasise elements and their relations into the evening light and at night.
Goccia Illuminazione underlined the monolithic shape of the new buildings with the defined light effect of the wall-mounted cubes K3 Writer, while linear borders and pathways of the garden and of the house connections are cadenced with the Standing post. Trees are also lit up at dusk with Clock, Goccia’s spike-mounted projector, letting the surrounding nature become part of the illuminated context.
