Colour and design for a remodelled garden

A long-neglected garden in an eighties apartment building in Caserta has been given fresh character and functionality in a project assigned to the architecture practice of Giancarlo Covino by the new owners, the Pascarella-Podano family. The project, called LSG, transformed the green space between the house and a private road into a secluded and functional place accessed by a flight of steps set against the boundary wall. Ceramic tiles played a key role in the project, transforming an otherwise functional intervention into an original exercise in style and colour.
The raised flowerbed containing the plants and aromatic herbs used in the owner’s kitchen is located close to the boundary wall, and has been tiled in a pattern created using the two different size modules in the Colore&Colore line from Ceramica Bardelli. “The alternation of the modules and four colours aims to bring depth and originality to the stereometry of the volume while infusing it with magic and allure,” explains the architect. The pattern, consisting of alternating light and dark vertical lines, is inspired by the composition of René Magritte’s 1965 painting Le Blanc-Seing, where segments of a woman on horseback can be glimpsed through the trees. The tiling extends onto the side of the adjacent staircase. The portion of the boundary wall near the flowerbed was intentionally cut away to reveal the masonry structure in Campanian tufa, a material whose porosity contrasts beautifully with the rich shimmering colours of the ceramic tiles. The paving consisting of large-size (60×60 cm) porcelain slabs from Marazzi’s Mystone Basalto line chosen in the colour Pomice is the perfect spot for admiring the garden, the staircase with its risers and treads clad in the same material, and the flowerbed planted with aromatic herbs. The rest of the garden has been laid to grass.
The LSG project won the residential category of the “2020 Ceramics and Design competition”. “We chose Italian ceramic tiles because, while being produced by internationally recognised companies, they maintain the typically Italian ideal of attention to detail and craftsmanship and also combine tradition and modernity, values that we try to bring to our own work,” says Giancarlo Covino. His Caserta-based practice carries out a wide range of projects from construction to renovation, graphics and theatre set design. He operates “on the basis of pre-existing conditions and historical memory and rather than proposing standard solutions aims to reformulate questions in such a way as to provide the best response to the real needs of both the space and its users”. Sustainability is another important aspect of the LSG project as it recycles rainwater for irrigation of the lawn and plants.