CASA M

CASA M
The flat is located in a two-family house on the borough of the baroque town of Noto, in Sicily.
The project is characterized by a long piece of furniture which runs along the house and has a threefold function: it organizes the main spaces (infact it separates the living area from the kitchen, the bathrom and the passage), it incorporates three of the four pillars that are in the midle of the house and it hides them. This piece of furniture incorporates doors and installations that distributes to the flat. They are the general framework of the various plants, the refrigerator and the oven.
In this way the walls are without furniture which would make less clear the articulated space.
The pre-existint difference of level in the living area (thirty centimeters taller than the rest of the house) has not been hidden but highlighted from the use of different materials, for example blond parquet for the living room and lava stone for kitchen, bathrom and passage. Once again the long piece of furniture plays the role of pivot, being put along the perimeter of living room and, therefore, linking together the various plans and materials.
However the piece of furniture is the heart, catalyst of the project, and the absolute simplicity of its design and its compount rule, which is simply a functional need and space order, don?t make it intrusive.
The disposition of furniture and all the windows, furthermore, make the best of the view: infact the french window of the kitchen is opposite the dining table, the wide window of the living room is on the open terrace, finally the narrow window on the living room that "closes" (maybe it would be better to say "opens") the path that from the hall one does running close to the great piece of furniture.
The materials, mainly wood and stone (used also for the outside even if worked in different way than the inside) are used in the most abstract way, but at the same time, their "matericit?" (that is the essence of the material) refers the craft world, as it is tested by the few furniture made (infact they are all planned by the designers).
However all the furniture are been made, like also the one of the bathroom, with the same planned strategy of the main piece of furniture, that is simple and unique volumes which hide the complexity of the functions that have.
In the apartment there are a lot of plants: the air-conditioning, the canned music, the lights and the curtains enclosed, the strained ventilation. All these ones are been planned following the principle of "discrezione formale" (that is simple and not intrusive), infact they are hidden into the plasterboard ceiling, the main piece of furniture, or into the walls.
Finally this is the meaning of whole work, to hide the complexity of the planning that today every designer has to deal with to emerge the architectonic space planned and the details which are important, but they are subordinate to the spatial clarity that we want to express.

Credits:
Design Architects: Andrea Morana,Luana Rao
Internal design: Andrea Morana,Luana Rao
Client: Mirko Morana
Location: Noto (Siracusa), ITALY
Textos: Alessandro Mauro
Photo: Carmelo Provina (studio BN)
Construction Firm:NETUM COSTRUZIONI
Hydraulic system: Giuseppe Cannarella
Electrical system: SA.ME.
Air Conditioning: VM IMPIANTI
Lightig system: PM LIGHT
Cabinet-maker: FINGESTIONI-HOMELINE
Stone: M.A.D.
Plasterboard: Rosario Bonsangue, Biagio Guerrieri
Painter: Mimmo Meli

The M+R (Andrea MORANA and Luana RAO) are both students of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Catania. They have started to work together since 2005 with other architects whom partecipated at several international competitions with.
In 2006 they won the first prize at an international workshop and in 2007 the third prize at an international competition (Section students) and in the same year they planned "CASA M".

EXHIBITS
2007 �Riqualificazione urbana di Mondello�, Palermo.
2006 �Festival dell�Architettura� , Parma-Modena.
2005 �Architettura e spazi ipogei�, Siracusa.

INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP
2007 Presence at the selection international workshop �Villa del Casale�, Enna.
2006 Presence at the 4th international stage �Entre o C�u e a Terra...o prazer e a dor na
arquitectura�, Lisboa. Workshop �Tragedia e Cidade�. Building land: Plaza do Comercio,
Lisboa. 1st prize.
2006 Presence at selection to 2nd international workshop "Abitazone" held in Buenos Aires.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONS
2007 Presence at in international competition of ideas for �Riqualificazione urbana di Mondello
-section students-. 3rd price.