The vast, captivating presence of the sea takes centre stage in a home renovation and extension project completed in the summer of 2022 on the hillside in Albissola Marina, a municipality in the province of Savona. While retaining the perimeter and pitched roof of the original 1980s building, the architects modified the windows to offer magnificent panoramic views of the Ligurian coast. The existing windows with Genoese-style shutters were replaced by large glass panels oriented towards the sea and the horizon. The position of the extension, a flat-roofed parallelepiped-shaped structure built at the end of the entrance drive, was also chosen to offer a sea view.
The project used “a small number of materials and colours that are repeated in the various rooms of the house. This creates a sense of consistency and relaxation, while allowing the blue of the sea and the green of the garden to permeate the spaces”, explains architect Alessandra Alfieri of Alfieri Architettura e Design. Another factor behind the choice of materials for both the interiors and exteriors was the desire to maintain a sense of continuity with the original project. The Corten steel-effect slabs from Laminam’s Ossido collection chosen in the Bruno colour version for the new volume and some of the exteriors coordinate effectively with the metal elements of the railing and staircase and the barbecue area in the garden. The same surfaces were used in the interior for the kitchen countertop, island and sink and for the TV cabinet, resonating in terms of colour and texture with the wood floor. Large marble-effect porcelain slabs from Laminam’s I Naturali Calacatta collection also play an important role. They were chosen for the bathroom and for the indoor and outdoor dining tables, the latter surrounded by vegetation and offering a splendid view of the sea. The choice of porcelain was largely dictated by the need to reduce maintenance and labour costs, explains Alfieri. This allowed a substantial portion of the budget to be allocated to solutions for improving sustainability, which was one of the client’s top priorities. With this in mind, the architects focused on insulation and glazing efficiency to reduce heating and cooling loads, and opted for a heating system with a heat pump and a photovoltaic system to generate renewable energy.
