Page 80 - Designing Ways 246

Ca’ Gioia: Lapitec’s

central role in a villa

paying tribute to the

Palladian style

Veneto, Italy

rom the ventilated facades to the coverings and floors, and
from the bathroom and bath to the kitchen and decorative
Faccessories. In this elegantly functional villa, the beauty of
sintered stone speaks for itself.
The entrance to the Ca’ Gioia, delimited by a long glass covering,
perfectly frames one of the magnificent 16th century works by
architect Andrea Palladio, as well as the first foothills of the Venetian
Prealps. Between these two buildings - on the one hand the famous
Villa Angarano, a UNESCO World Heritage Site built in Bassano del
Grappa in 1556, on the other the house designed by Francesco Pascali
- lies only a large park, which separates them while permitting a
continuous dialogue. Both pursue the same logic in their relationship
with the territory and interpret the two paradigms of Veneto
residences: encapsulating both the theme of the urban villa, and the
country estate opening onto the surrounding landscape.
Completed in early 2021, Ca’ Gioia is set on gently sloping ground,
planted with olives and other fruit trees, and developed on an area
of 8,000 m2. Constructed in an L-shape, which retraces the lines of
a pre-existing agricultural building, the new residential structure
interprets the guiding principles of Palladian architecture in a
contemporary key. The long, lower building with a pitched roof,
facing west and set at a slightly higher level, is connected to the main
two-storey building, recreating, in the style of the great Renaissance
master himself, a wonderful balance between monumental forms and
simplicity. The volumes here are pure and meticulously geometric,
characterised by a very precise rapport between empty and filled
spaces. On the ground floor the rooms are more open and flowing,
with large windows creating a direct connection with the large garden.

Inside, the two-storey section houses the entrance space with a living
and dining area, the kitchen and a study, while on the upper floor the
staircase in white painted metal and oak leads to the sleeping area and
its three bedrooms, four bathrooms and a large walk-in closet serving
the rooms. The single-storey section, meanwhile, is home to garages,
a guest room with bathroom, a studio apartment for staff and a large
open space, whose function can be adapted depending on the needs
of the family. Light colours have been chosen for the homogeneous
interior finishes, increasing the light flooding into the environment:
the flooring is in large slabs of Lapitec in the Bianco Crema shade
and the Vesuvio finish, while natural wooden beams and panelling
outline the ceiling and some of the internal walls.

The classical rigour of Ca’ Gioia, the clean and linear profiles of its
external casing and internal areas, are the result of a long design
process that saw the owner and architect Francesco Pascali equally
involved. “We worked for almost four years on the design of this

80 Issue 246 • dw