programme: plans, renovation management and interiors of a flat in the historical city centre.

client: Private commission

team: sophia los

collaborators: michela gugole, lisa modenini, cristiana rossetti, donato de pizziol

city: verona, Italy

status: completed, 2009

Renovation of a flat situated on the top floor of an historical building. The revision of internal partitions aimed at making the best possible use of the available surface area. The dry wooden walls work as containers in most cases, thus creating a coherent and fluid space. In the hall, an enclosed balcony extends the exceedingly small kitchen area. For this intervention, we selected biocompatible materials and technologies: walls and fitted wardrobes made of white-washed tulipwood panels and oak wood darkened with water-based stains, dark oak floors, colour wash paint, acoustic insulation in kenaf, combining panels of different densities, and teak panelling for the master bathroom. We installed radiant ceiling heating and cooling in the sleeping area and underfloor heating and cooling in the living area to protect the plasterwork ceiling.

Originally designed for a young couple with a small child, the flat has hosted the man’s father since 2015, as his son moved to a bigger house. For this project, the plasterwork on the ceiling was carefully restored by Andrea Ciresola.

photos: alberto sinigaglia

programme: plans, construction management of the interiors and balcony.

client: private commission

team: sophia los

Collaborators: renza mara calabrese (balcony), luca fadini (landscaping), laboratorio morseletto 

city/area: sommacampagna, Italy

status: completed, 2009

Renovation of a top floor flat of an historical building.

The container wall in the living room, the shaping of natural light (through the creation of two niches), and the sleeping area chromatic schemes are the main project themes. 

aggiungi da articolo viliana

The works finished in 2009 with the completion of the balcony. On the other side of the wall, we could glimpse a beautiful park. This fact inspired the whole project: a little balcony with a panoramic view, adding the exterior to renovation work I had undertaken in a small Veronese flat. The sight was remarkable, but peeking the park on the other side of the wall proved irresistible. So, I imagined steps that turn into countertop and sink, recalling the stairs full of vases of ancient “borghi” (medieval hamlets) and completing the balcony space with one single functional and playful element. For the relaxing area, surrounded by plants selected among the ancient species in the nearby countryside, I designed a folding sofa-bed, where one can sunbathe as on a boat.

programme: plans, renovation management and studio interiors.

client: private commission

team: sophia los

collaborators: marta stocco, renza mara calabrese (wardrobe)

city/area: padua, Italy

status: completed, 2014

Renovation and interior design for a Chartered Accountants Firm in Padua. The interiors featured a big central area immersed in the dark, despite facing south and north. We decided to make the shadows work for us by laying a system of paths connecting the private offices and the conference rooms, creating a contrast between the sombre passageways and the much brighter offices. Taking our cue from the shot fabrics seen in Tiepolo’s frescos in The Chinese Room of The Foresteria of Villa Valmarana ai Nani, we chose two colours, two complementary shades: a blue-grey and a brick-red shade. We applied them to the walls, floors and ceilings to create the perception of a shot effect, of dynamic and relaxing tones.We entrusted the reception area to the art of Federica Agnoletto – Freak of Nature, offering a cheerful welcome to the clients, often coming to the accounting firm burdened by all their financial worries. The wardrobe is a Renza Mara Calabrese design. We gave particular importance to natural and artificial light in the office. We added large planters along the window walls, where we placed plants among some NASA deemed most effective in absorbing polluting agents.

photos: alberto sinigaglia

Giandomenico Tiepolo, The Chinese Room, The Foresteria of Villa Valmarana ai Nani, Vicenza, 1757. Detail

programme: plans, renovation management of a holiday home.

client: private commission

team: sophia los

collaborators: giovanni baron

city/area: sottomarina, Italy

status: completed, 2017

The project dealt with the renovation and the interior design for a holiday flat. The inside walls CalceCanapa (hemp & lime) lining, and subsequent limewashing optimised the internal healthiness of a humid space. The apartment had to be minimalistic, functional and bright. The corridors, like the stairwells and entrances, are transitional spaces, often dark and empty. Often, they are just the right spots to introduce splashes of colour, to make shadows colourful. In this instance, I suggested the corridor be like diving into the sea. The commissioners, however, did not like blue tints, so we picked variations of the colour green. The corridor features fitted wardrobes and doors. 

In the children’s room, a table was designed and illustrated by Davide Charlie Ceccon

Photos: Alberto Sinigaglia

programme: plans, interiors construction management for a new single-family residential building.

client: private commission

team: sophia los

collaborators: giovanni baron, marta stocco

city/area: polverara (PD), Italy

status: completed, 2017

We intervened when the property was still unfinished, re-defining the room layout as much as possible, taking care of the finishes, detailing, and fitted furnishings. The skirting is the fil rouge of the project, and it features a “string course” trimming the wall while occasionally turning into a service space handle. The rows of beige-toned and white stripes on the staircase level and in the living room accompany you visually as you climb the stairs, and they also shorten the long corridor on the ground floor. The neutral base meets a more lively look in the bathrooms, whose colours were expertly picked by the children. Subsequently, we designed the children’s bedrooms after a long discussion with them. The comic artist Davide Charlie Ceccon suggested his original characters Bilbo and Batbilbo for the boy’s room while he created a new ad hoc character, Margherita, who he also added to his subsequent children’s comics.

The living room tabletop, designed by the studio, is by Elisabetta Carron.

Photos: Alberto Sinigaglia

programme: plans, interiors & garden construction management.

client: private commission

team: sophia los, luca parolin (garden), massimo asci (building)

city/area: pontelongo, italy

status: completed, 2005 – garden 2007

Two sisters put me in charge of handling the interior design of their two-family home (a colleague’s project) under construction and its garden. The two homes reflect the sisters’ different personalities and conceive identical volumes as if they were variations on the same theme, moving from the women’s distinct needs, desires and orientation. The first house features neutral tones, while two chromatic hints, the complementary colours red and green, are used, one at the entrance and one for the staircase behind the small fireplace. We designed the children’s bedrooms – which we entrusted to the artist Elisabetta Carron – in both homes, plus all the finishings and the bespoke furniture.  The dining table is her design, as well. In the garden – which recalls the rural landscape – close to the house, we designed a section for herbs and roses. The large lawn facing the living room integrates the surrounding landscape thanks to some trees guiding your eyes in the distance.

programme: plans, interiors & garden construction management.

client: private commission

team: sophia los, luca parolin (garden), massimo asci (building)

city/area: pontelongo, italy

status: completed, 2005, garden 2007

Two sisters put me in charge of handling the interior design of their two-family home (a colleague’s project) under construction and its garden. The two homes reflect the sisters’ different personalities and conceive identical volumes as if they were variations on the same theme, moving from the women’s distinct needs, desires and orientation. The second house features chartreuse green paired with other fresh tones, like lavender and a shade of green chosen to brighten the staircase. We designed the children’s bedrooms – which we entrusted to the artist Elisabetta Carron – for both homes, plus the finishings and the bespoke furniture. A notable piece is a table featuring a pierced centre with a vase inserted for flowers, fruit or as a glacette. The table has recently become a limited series item produced by Il Tuo Legno https://www.iltuolegno.it/serie-limitata/.

The gardens flank a shared area between two private spaces and feature an orchard at the entrance and a romantic secret garden with rose varieties.

photos: alberto sinigaglia and sophia los

programme: plans, renovation management of a flat in the city centre 

client: private commission

team: sophia los

collaborators: gianluca rosso, carlo zambonin (structures), cristian cipriotto

city/area: padua, italy

status: completed, 2018

Renovation of a flat in Padua’s historical city centre. The flat had been set up in the 1970s and needed a reconfiguration to fit the new owner’s needs. To better the inner micro-climate – Padua is often very damp – we insulated the walls with lime hemp, a natural material with excellent hygroscopic qualities, and then painted their surfaces with lime wash. All the materials had the goal of achieving a healthy, comfortable space. The new planimetric layout recalls the traditional palaces of Veneto, modernised and articulated around a central hall. This way, we provided ample and pleasant spaces and lovely ventilation in the summer.

programme: plans, garden and extension construction management.

client: private commission

team: sophia los, luca parolin (garden), carlo zambonin (structure)

collaborators: marta stocco

city/area: s. giorgio in bosco (PD), italy

status: completed, 2017

The intervention concerned the re-organisation of accesses, the garden layout and the extension of a country house, recently completed in keeping with the tradition of the Veneto “barchessa”. We started the project by studying the spaces, recognising the distinct identity of some recurrent figures in the agricultural Veneto landscape, where woodlands alternate meadows surrounded by shrubland (field maples, hazels, etc.). The intervention highlighted the pattern, then addressing the delicate matter of accesses. This often-overlooked issue contributes to public and private spaces promiscuity, a situation that is often uncomfortable for owners. The lack of hierarchy, space, and paths layout was a source of discomfort here too. We moved the entrance and re-designed the narration around the relationship between public roads and personal spaces.

In addition to avoiding this space promiscuity, the intervention allows us to unify the service area (entrances, car parks), freeing the living unit from that function. Next to the pergola at the entry, we planned to build an open portico to protect cars from exposure. Both elements, the pergola and the portico, are divided by a brick wall with a glass top. The pergola and portico pillars are set up to host climbing plants, so in time they will become green pillars, as per the rural Veneto tradition.

While the house features an especially pleasant garden, it was introverted, making the external space harder to use. For this reason, we decided to build an eastern extension reminiscent of traditional orangeries. The trapezoidal glassed volume faces the garden, like a dining room in the greenery. The addition of the new volume gives the right proportion to the eastern front, previously much higher. The greenhouse faces both south and east and is designed according to solar geometry. As such, it contributes to the building heat requirements in winter like a passive greenhouse. The northern side, protected and glassed on the top only, enables natural summer ventilation. The teak floor works in continuity between inside and outside.

programme: plans, garden and interiors construction management.

client: private commission

team: sophia los, luca parolin.

collaborators: marta stocco

city/area: mussolente, Italy

status: completed, 2012

The owner was one of my first commissioners and, more importantly, someone who believed in me. I created designs for her for another house before and other big and small things for this property over more than ten years. Our stimulating conversations, as well as her affection and esteem, are very precious. The property belongs to an estate of exclusive detached houses situated in a scenic area at the foothills. The chance to renovate the garden came from the need to reclaim the rather clayed ground – which caused prolonged water stagnation during the rain – by draining the whole property. We highlighted and strengthened the various house aspects, bettering the integration between the inside and outside. Simultaneously, the project included moving the street access to the side, enhancing the previously neglected east face. The ensuing outlook frames the woods at the back. The southern lawn was raised to reduce the ‘hill effect’ as much as possible while exploiting the height of the existing little boundary wall.

The new garden aimed at connecting the hill and the frontal levels, previously distinct and uninhabited, now joint in one big floor. The floored level organises the entire composition around the building, and, as it rotates, it introduces a series of visual anchors and new viewpoints, enriching the perception of paths and rest areas while dilating the boundary between the house and the open space. In parallel, we carried out many interventions inside, such as the great south window, the tapestry/door in the living room, the insolation regulating panel under the portico, the stone vase-table, the wooden wall in the master bedroom (a great tree protecting from the cold north wall, echoing the outside woods).

programme: communication of furnishings for assisted living facilities

client: cit-malvestio

team: sophia los

collaborators: MMBF (graphic design), studio visus (photography), studio pitari (photography), nude design studio (rendering)

city/area: padua, italy 

status: completed, 2007-2010

Project related to the communication of furniture for assisted living facilities for Alzheimer patients. Collections: “Rialto”, “Domino”, Taiga”, “Agorà”. The catalogues of furnishings for assisted living facilities embodied the uselessness of the elderly: sad spaces, lacking in vitality, empty. The new catalogues are the first in Italy and perhaps Europe to frame the guests’ everyday experiences in the facilities in a welcoming yet realistic way. This approach rejects the usual trend of swaying from fake hotels to desolate nursing homes.

While collaborating with Cit-Malvestio, a leading company in hospital services in Italy, in 2012, I worked as a consultant for grants on the furnishing of assisted living homes and proposed some custom solutions.

programme: design and costruction site managment of the chapel

client: privato

team: sophia los, sergio los

city/area: marostica, italy

status: completed 1993

A private chapel dedicated to Santa Rita, inside the S. Maria Assunta Parish Church of Marostica (Vicenza, Italy). Appointment for a Renewal project and for works management Altar mat created by Renata Bonfanti.

My debut on a construction site while still a student, this little project was inspired by the Venetian, 14-15th century sacred painting’s iconography and was meant to make the majolica altarpiece donated to the community by a local businessman as a votive offering available to those attending the Church.

“Our design originates from the idea of a glossy and bright space, like the inside of a shell, and therefore rounded at each edge, where to keep the precious altarpiece, which thus appears suspended in a sizzles setting. A wooden pew marks the distinction between the sacred area, illuminated whit soft, diffuse light, and the one reserved for the congregation.

on the other hand, the glossy and precious material of the bas-relief comes to meet us, taking on the opaque and dense appearance of earth through the texture of a rug woven according to a simple repeated pattern.

Like a prayer, the long strip of cloth once again opens a dialogue that the pew had only apparently closed and fills the gap between man and God, as prayer permits us to do.

And if we look in our memory we will find something familiar in the architectural composition of the Chapel, as well as in the rug which in Christian iconography always moves timidly towards the observer, like an invitation and reassuring promise of salvation.”

photo: Giustino Chemello

renata bonfanti – tessitura come mestiere

programme: final house plans for a single-family building.

client: private commission

team: sophia los, gianluca rosso

collaborators: marta stocco

city/area: vicenza, italy

status: unrealised, 2014-2015

The project concerns the construction of a single-family bioclimatic wooden building in bio-architecture for a couple. For years, they sought the right spot for their idea of a dream house. For reasons outside both our control, we sadly could not bring the project to fruition. As soon as we found the land, a scenic spot immersed in the greenery, we immediately delved into the project with enthusiasm. We began with identifying some typical traits of local settlings, the climatic and geographical context while also responding to the commissioners’ ‘desire for living’ and making it into a project. From a typological point of view, to avoid building a detached house, we opted for a “borgo” house (often found in that area) made of irregular volumes paired together and shaped more by the terrain, the sun and the wind than by designers’ well-laid plans. The estate land is sloping, facing north and east, and partially agricultural. To expose the house to the sun and exploit its potential, we angled the building towards the south-east and used the building land to the maximum. Because of the lie of the land, the building will be dug into the ground partially, to the mountainside.

programme: plans and shop renovation management.

client: focus

team: sophia los

city/area: bassano del grappa (VI), italy

status: completed, 1996

The Focus shop renovation was a big bet. I had recently graduated when the owner – my dear friend Romano Zanon’s father – trustingly put his shop into my hands. Situated in Piazza Libertà in Bassano del Grappa, the establishment was a staple for porcelain and crystalware, known in the whole of Northern Italy and frequented by educated and elegant customers. The challenge was re-using the existing unmatched shelving units and finding a coherent design to layout the products in a new and orderly way. First of all, I moved the entrance to the side, making use of the small portico outside, allowing people to linger by the shop window, and suggested a path among the various types of merchandise inside. Alongside pear and oakwood, I chose three recurrent shades as backdrops to the product layouts, alternating the wood with textiles from the Renata Bonfanti workshop. I singled out a shelving system, separating the structure and the front, allowing me to uniform the furniture, old and new. Many years later, the “Maschera” bookshelf, designed for Morelato, came to life from this initial concept. The lighting placed between the front and back structure by the owner proved an excellent solution. When we completed the works, the owner said to me: “I never understood, Sophia, whether you accepted this difficult job because you are brave or because you are crazy”. After 55 years of activity, the shop moved into new premises managed by Romano in 2011, just a few hundred metres away from the original site.

programme: design and working site management of a private park

client: private commission

team: sophia los and luca parolin

with: claudio caramel (architectural design)

city/area: treviso, Italy

status: completed, 2006

A park on the hillside appreciated for its scenic landscape and views, but in particular for the richness in springs and waterways that represent the leitmotif of the park.

The entire property is marked by a series of slopes bordered by waterways – parallel to each other – then reaching a stream below.

The project proposes to distinguish the routes. The main course sustaining the composition by connecting the “borgo” with the estate boundary becomes a footpath, while cars are diverted along the border. The path reaches the home in stages, as an uninterrupted visual axis would have attributed a stately tone not suitable to the rural character of the existing architecture.

We decided to replace the “residential” aspect that characterises the existing garden with a more “natural” one by looking at plants and themes from the surrounding countryside. On elevated land on the north side of the property lies a highly valued area where a water spring joins a creek marking the line between plain and slope. Here we set a little natural, artificial lake next to the stream – a bio-lake. From the terrace on the first floor, from the rooms at the garden level, a wooden bridge connects the buildings higher up with the lake and crosses it, becoming a pier, hooking the lake to the building and allowing it to be distinct from the wilder surroundings.

programme: design and site management of a palace park in the city centre.

client: private commission

team: sophia los, luca fadini (gianbenini)

city/area: padua, italy

status: completed, 2011

The project deals with the redesign of an historical park in the urban context. There was little existing information available about it, except a possible consulting by Giuseppe Jappelli. Over the years, the Renaissance complex was surrounded by incongruous buildings, including an underground car park.

The project had several aims:

• reducing the sense of invasiveness of the adjoining buildings
• generating living spaces that were more than just aesthetically pleasing, following a contemporary functional programme, suitable to multiple users and easy to maintain 
• interpreting and evoking qualities of historical gardens.

The garden was conceived as a polyptych, a mix of equally discreet and integrated parts without any hierarchy. Thus, each of the park’s viewpoints becomes its centre, allowing for different views and suggestions every time. The garden divides into a Court of honour, a Grove, a Secret Garden, a Garden of Marvels, and a Glade, the most interesting element of the whole design. From a thicket of laurels, we carved out a perfect elliptical space – a nod to Jappelli – covered in grass and surrounded by blossoming cherry trees. The area is suitable for receptions or to read a book in solitude while also acting as a screen concealing the adjacent block of flats.

programme: design and construction management of a historical garden with veteran trees.

client: private commission

team: sophia los, luca parolin, sergio los (pergola)

city/area: cittadella, italy

status: completed, 2002

The garden lies between a renovated home and the medieval curtain walls. We had to find a compositive strategy making the great mass of the wall and the existing cedars proportional to the house dimensions. We employed a sequence of variously slanted levels achieving distinct impressions as the point of view changes. Climbing up towards the wall base on the embankment, one can appreciate glimpses of the sides made appealing by the enceinte’s curved form. From this viewpoint, horizontal lines of worn-out bricks and pebbles appear clearly, establishing an increasingly tactile relationship with the wall. The levels’ profile is made of broken lines, creating geometrical terraces with clear-cut steps made softer by the vegetation. The first bank was covered in shrubs (Japanese maples, azaleas, pierises, camellias, viburnums, winter hazels, abelias “Prostrate White”, Eriobotrya “Coppertone”, cinquefoils, Prostrate Rosemary, China roses) to produce a perceived distance between the walls and the housing level. We flanked the veteran cedars and the existing pines on the mid-level bank with a grove of deciduous trees (Liquidambar styraciflua and Celtis australis), taking care to leave a glimpse of the turret visible. The path to the walls’ entrance runs along the border, protected by a pergola reaching the old well, then moves on to the first bank with porphyry terraces. The larch wood pergola, designed by architect Sergio Los, is covered in climbing roses and stands on supporting green columns, made of a vase-like base of coloured cement and an iron rod shaft that supports the Ryncospermum. On the opposite side of the lawn, a big curvilinear thicket of shrubs (Olea fragrans, ornamental pomegranates, Osmanthus x burkwoodii, shrub roses) conceals the garage ramp, enclosing it. The path finishes on the opposite border, covered with Clematis armandii.

programme: design and construction management of a garden to a liberty-style villa.

client: private commission

team: sophia los (morseletto workshop), luca parolin, carlo zambonin (structure)

city/area: pesaro, italy

status: completed, 2003

A garden of a liberty-style villa stuck in a rather dense residential area. In this project, the challenge was to create numerous viewpoints, despite the narrow space and the towering block of flats next to the property. We set up the project according to two guidelines. We placed the dining area on the side of the kitchen, thus hiding the platform to the underground garage. Swinging bamboo tops keep the space cool, while the cone of vision includes a view of the distant surroundings between houses. Facing the facade is a thick laurel bush and a lean-to pergola, acting as the garden backdrop and visually sending the front building to the back. Pergolas are steel and iroko wood, the floors and the dining table are Istrian stone from Vrsar.

elisa arami painted the outbuilding referencing a william morris motif.

programme: concept, preliminary and executive architectural design, interior and landscape design

client: eco surf resort, lda

team: sophia los

collaborators: Engineering Tisem, Luis Henrique Dos Santos, Maria Filomena De Jesus Miranda Frade, Natasha F. Pulitzer, Luca Vecchiato, Chiara Dal Molin, Marta Stocco, Patrizia Callegari and Giuseppe Baruzzo

location: Peniche, Portugal

status: completed, 2014

To be a guest of nature.

The eco-surf camp was built inside a natural reserve 2 km away from the ocean, making it a popular destination for surfers and people fond of ecotourism, in a territory of great food-and-wine, landscape and cultural interest. The four-star village, immersed in the woods, features a surf-house (restaurant, large multifunctional hall, spa area), the keeper’s lodge, a service building, seven bungalows and eighteen custom-made tents (glamping), as well a Skatepark, a bio-lake and a permaculture garden. The village is entirely built with wood. The guests’ opportunity to dwell in areas of outstanding natural and environmental beauty allows for new experiences like restoring a healthy relationship with nature or strengthening the senses. Offering an unusual housing experience highlights the uniqueness of the holiday, as guests live inside tree houses on stilts, enjoying the open spaces, or witness the recovery of existing traditional housing types. The project means to harmonize anthropological and technological aspects. The village generates an ecosystem complementary to the woods, implementing a management model that controls interactions between the buildings and the environment, ensuring input and output balance as much as possible, making buildings increasingly autonomous from infrastructures and resources.

The project was carried out with European funds.

programme: concept, final plans and construction management of the interiors and the garden.

client: private commission

team: Sophia Los

collaborators: aldo marzoli, renza mara calabrese, giovanni pesamosca (wooden structure )

city/area: madonna di campiglio, Italy

status: completed, 2011

For this project, we collaborated with a local architect. The villa is organised on three floors, including a basement, and presents various orographic complexities. We designed the building along with the interiors and the garden. The house, clad in local larch wood from the ground level up, was conceived like a large scale piece of furniture where we took care of every aesthetic, building, functional detail following bio-architectural principles. The building construction uses Xlam, and the electrical, plumbing and HVAC plans were laid out very carefully alongside the furniture to reduce the false walls containing the systems and highlighting the natural wood effect to the maximum. The chosen panels feature high-performance eco-compatible properties. Doors, windows and cladding were left purposely unfinished so the house could age naturally. The roof shingles and granite cladding were made according to the valley’s traditional techniques, bringing in the last available workers skilled in these processes. Moving away from Alto Adige traditions and closer to those in Trento, the house takes after some of the themes in Val Rendena, applying them to both balconies and interiors.

programme: preliminary, final and executive plans and construction site management

client: università degli studi di udine

team: sophia los, gianluca rosso

city/area: udine, italy

status: completed, 2011

Project enhancing the excavations of the protohistoric burial mound of S. Osvaldo in Udine.

Designing an archaeological site is both a great honour and a great responsibility. Architecture is a discipline grounded in the skill to listen to the location, to nature, to history, to culture and people. The shape and the building emerge as a result of this. In our case, we were dealing with a burial ground, an inviolable site, immersed in the silence of a life returning to the landscape. Specifically, the exterior was a tumulus, a small hill that time had covered in grass. There were no other similar examples: this was the first instance of a burial mound rebuilt and made accessible to visitors. The tumulus lies in S. Osvaldo in the southern outskirts of Udine, within the property of the University’s Experimental Farm laying before the Psychiatric Hospital. The construction had to be easy to make and be inexpensive while also not overpowering the archaeological structure. If possible, it had to be inconspicuous. It needed to be safe and accessible to visitors without overlooking the respect due to the buried. We came up with the idea to raise the ground, using an up-and-over door that provides shelter while diffusing the light. When the site is closed to visitors, nothing is visible but a bent surface cut on the hillside, like a wooden rug. The project includes the footpath to the entrance of the mound, acting as an introduction to the visit. It creates the necessary distance of space and time for experiencing the encounter with protohistory. The visitors can explore the tumulus by climbing on top, walking around and finally inside it as part of a narrative journey tying together the site with its surroundings. The wooden surface facilitates the climb and doubles as a dry seat. This way, we strengthened the sense of a solid volume morphing into the landscape rather than of a separate building.

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The project was presented at the AIAPP national symposium “Paesaggi e archeologie” (“Landscapes and Archaeology”) on 7^th  June 2013 at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Naples.

programme: preliminary plans, internal feasibility study, final plans of the inner courtyard.

client: kurtin farm

team: sophia Los, gianluca rosso, filippo piovene (phase two)

collaborators: giovanni baron, andrea marin (structures)

city/area: cormons (GO), italy

status: ongoing

The practice has been involved in this project since 2017, handling the general redefinition of the whole complex (2017), then beginning the first set of interventions in the production courtyard inside (2020). The project is ongoing, adapting to new needs and possibilities that arise over time as completion progresses.

The Kurtin winery began as a farm, starting from a stone house – now demolished – and other farm annexes integrating other extensions over time. A centuries-old oak – like a guardian – captures your attention and stands next to the cellar’s entrance. The project intends to highlight some pre-existing elements of the site that are not currently visible, only waiting to be discovered.

First of all, one has the sensation of entering a “borgo” (medieval farm). This articulated configuration, unlike that of a single object, has become the project’s central theme. The project expresses this theme by organizing three “squares” surrounded by buildings: the production court to the east, the reception court with a belvedere to the west connecting to the third court on the lower level by a staircase.

Observing the “borghi” castles, and strongholds typical of the Gorizia Hills, we can find some recurrent elements: small settlements on top of the hills and towers rooted in the slopes, like vertical elements acting as a counterpoint to the soft shapes of the hilly countryside.

Here in the valley, a turret will signal the “borgo’s” presence, becoming its fundamental vertical axis. The old house, still made of stone, is presented anew, now slightly moved to function as a door unifying the estate on the mountainside with the newly acquired valley side.

Walking alongside the turret, you reach the cellar entrance, a low horizontal building characterized by simple, white volumes: the centre of attention here is the wine, not the architecture.

For this project, we brought in Davide Charlie Ceccon to design the wine labels presented at Vinitaly 2019. 

programme: holiday village, feasibility study and general planning for the realisation of an eco-compatible village with a golf club, and division into plots

client: private commission

team: sergio los with sophia los, natasha pulitzer

with: SYNERGIA progetti, tourist and financial project: roberto lauricella – ICP group SA trust

city/area: morro de são paulo, brazil

status: unrealised 2001-2005

The intervention touches 39 expandable hectares of land, located in a landscape of great beauty with patches of tropical forest (“Mata Atlantica”), water streams and beaches, including a 500 m wide shore facing the coral reef. The tropical climate is mitigated by breezes making the stay comfortable all year round. The project affects the only cleared out area available on the island, and it comprises the definition of a Resort with 200 rooms and 100 bungalows with tennis courts, and a residential settlement made of eighty 5000 m² plots next to an eighteen-hole golf course. 

http://www.synergiaprogetti.com/it/ecovillaggi-e-micro-citt%C3%A0/item/222-villaggio-turistico-nell%E2%80%99isola-del-morro-de-sao-paulo.html

programme: slow tea cluster pavilion outfitting

client: slow tea cluster, with milan expo 2015, KIP

team: sophia los

graphic design: loriana martin

city/area: milan expo – italy

status: unrealised, 2015

International Slow Tea Association is a worldwide non-profit and non-governmental organisation dedicated to promoting quality teas, fair-trade production and consumption, and tea culture.

Slow Tea supports and promotes initiatives defending local tea traditions; it supports small tea producers their values and knowledge by enabling sustainable tea production that protects local biodiversity.

In the KIP EXPO Pavilion’s “Multipurpose Space for Partners Expositions”, Slow Tea International organised a SLOW TEA CLUSTER: a space dedicated to all the organisations, institutions and companies (producers and traders) active in the promotion of sustainable tea production, such as the National Tea Board, tea producers, tea farmers, tea estates, universities and research institutes, national and international tea organisations.

Shortly before the inauguration, the event was cancelled due to a contingency.

programme: “New place marketing for SMEs based in the mountainous region in the Vicenza province” – exhibition and seminars.

client: confartigianato vicenza

team: sophia los, luca fattambrini, massimo meggiolaro

collaborators: renza mara calabrese, matteo pollani, paola de rosso

city/area: asiago (VI) – italy

status: completed, 2008

The Craft Workers Association for the Vicenza Province launched a project titled: “New place marketing for SMEs based in the mountain region in the Vicenza province”. The initiative was backed by the Eu regional development fund to promote economic growth and entrepreneurship within businesses in the mountainous areas.

The plan included activities aiming at boosting productions and local source materials from the Asiago Plateau, particularly marble and wood. With this goal in mind, the program featured a small exhibition dedicated to this topic and three supporting seminars to get a deeper look.

The talks sought to bring private and public entities’ experiences in the realm of regulations and entrepreneurship to professionals from the sector and local organizations’ representatives, thus aiding the community’s economic growth.

Both industries, wood and marble, represent two areas with great potential for economic growth in the Asiago Plateau, but they are currently in a crisis. The competition is intense from raw processing, making it hard to employ local resources. The lack of syndicates limits the scope of shared policies, while the loss of identity of the cityscape enables the spread of incoherent stylistic features and materials.

It is not just about boosting entrepreneurship but also about acting to safeguard the environment by increasing the appreciation of the local materials’ specific qualities, using them in the community, coordinating and grouping the entire supply chain. This approach would help recover the historical architecture typical of this area, returning the Plateau and its landscape to its original appearance.

The exhibition titled: “Notes for a Portrait. Architecture in the Seven Municipalities” presents a preliminary examination of stylistic features, now almost completely gone, typical of the local architecture, to make them recognisable to locals and foreigners alike.

The implementation of incentives for sustainable construction in building regulations could affect not just energy-saving technologies, bio-compatible materials, bio-climatic design but also reward the use of local materials as an ecologic action (it would reduce transportation-related pollution).

Appunti per un ritratto – Testo

Appunti per un ritratto – Mostra

programme: “a state-of-the-art territory” – a multidisciplinary project for the definition of urban guidelines

client: confartigianato vicenza

team: sophia los, sergio los, claudio bertorelli, centro studi udine

collaborators: n. covre, e. lorenzetto, l. parolin, e. bottin, f. dal toso, c. dal molin, daria petucco, i. visentin

city/area: sr11 – Vvcenza, italy

status: completed, 2012

To mark the new provincial urban plan, Confartigianato commissioned a pilot project to devise strategic guidelines for sustainable environmental, entrepreneurial and urban development. The Regional Road 11, as a case study, is the only portion of territory for which the Provincial Plan has considered a dedicated masterplan. 

actions:

– Pursuing the multifunctionality of the land while gradually weakening the market street quality.

– Seeing the SR11 territory no longer as a linear element of separation but a sequence of nodes. The act of giving it back to the dimension of living, or in other words, “re-integrating” it into the wider environment to which it belongs.

– Re-building a latent landscape through the continually balanced inter-relation between human settlement systems and agropolitan and periurban agricultural systems.

– Granting agricultural territories and their related activities a fundamental role (currently very limited) in the process of land re-qualification.

– The substantial collaboration between municipalities and the constant involvement of social actors.

– Activating strategic planning tools across municipalities while evaluating the use of the new set of instruments as provided by the regional law 11/04 (equalisation, credit and compensation). 

Presentation at the Villa Cordellina Lombardi.

programme: co-artistic director, displays, furniture design

client: morelato

team: sophia los

city/area: salizzole (VR), italy

status: completed 2007-2016

Our collaboration with Morelato cabinetmakers began in 2007, and, for about a decade, I helped the company in all their activities and initiatives: from marketing consulting and the artistic direction of their catalogues, to planning the displays of their merchandise at various national and international fairs, planning showroom out-fittings, displays for the MAAM museum. Moreover, I also designed some furniture pieces, like the “Maschera” system and the four poster bed “Nomade”, still produced today. 

The company combines its production with a rich cultural activity partnering with the Triennale Milano. Every year Morelato launches a design competition and other initiatives through the Aldo Morelato Foundation, based in Villa Dionisi, home to MAAM – Museum of Applied Arts and Contemporary Furniture.

I invited them to create a suite for the Benè fair, introducing the “Nomade” bed. The bookshelf “Maschera” resulted from our collaboration during the 2007 Luxury Expo in Verona.

The MAAM catalogue design and the logos restyling are the work of my brother Pietro Los whom I involved in 2010.

Damir Jellici curated the catalogues featuring photography by Alberto Sinigaglia and subsequently by Emozioni studio.

https://www.morelato.it/ita/list/cataloghi

http://fondazionealdomorelato.org/pages/73

programme: exhibition display

client: ellevì antichità

team: sophia los

city/area: stella maris church, porto cervo, italy

status: completed, july 2018

An exhibition of works by Doménikos Theotokópoulos – also known as El Greco – an extraordinary painter, was the perfect occasion to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stella Maris church’s solemn consecration, while additionally realising the Director of Ellévi Antichità Letizia Valoti’s desire to bring some essential works from the Master’s life to Porto Cervo. El Greco’s artistic maturity, which he reached over his ten years of living in Italy, is displayed by a miniature on copper, a rare beauty depicting “San Francis in prayer”. The item is an extremely recent discovery of prof. Lionello Puppi presented to the general public for the first time ever in the Stella Maris church.

In addition to the exhibition, the event included a talk featuring Mariella Lobefaro, an expert on icons, and prof. Lionello Puppi, prof. Emeritus of Methodologies of Art History at Ca’ Foscari University, Venice as panellists. 

Designed by architect Michele Busiri Vici in the now typical style of Costa Smeralda, the church is an organic and plastic space. The baptistry, where we installed the exhibition, is a low irregular chamber with a vaulted ceiling. It wasn’t possible to use the walls to show the paintings. I conceived a three-dimensional frame of large dimensions instead of a glass case, a sort of “frame-space” one could walk around gradually discovering the precious works by El Greco.

The display was created thanks to the precious contribution of craftspeople and friends Nico Filigheddu, Gianni Filigheddu (Aire) and their collaborators.

At the last minute, as prof. Puppi was indisposed, prof. Nano Chatzidakis, PhD, Prof. Of Byzantine Art and Archaeology at the University of Ioannina (Greece), substituted prof. Puppi. This little exhibition is very dear to me, and I am grateful to Letizia for letting me meet Lionello Puppi one last time. This project is dedicated to him.

2005 marks the beginning of a ten-year collaboration with Studio Event, creator and organiser of an innovative trade fair: Benè Wellness expo, at the Vicenza Expo Centre. We worked side by side to organise the whole fair, and I personally curated the architecture section. I experimented with an innovative and effective communication strategy to attract a diverse public. The content was in tune with the target/interests, and it provided information they wouldn’t otherwise seek out on their own. We maintained this approach over the following years, variating the themes.

Here we present a selection.

Concept, art direction and organisation of a special event: “La barchessa bioclimatica”, within Fiera Bené. Sentieri di Benessere. 

The bioclimatic barchessa provided the expo with a module of the typical vernacular architecture of Veneto. The goal was highlighting the bioclimatic qualities of rural construction. 

The event included a symposium and a related book with the patronage of Ordine degli Architetti P.P.C. of Vicenza. 

The speakers invited included expert historians (Lionello Puppi and Giuseppe Barbieri) alongside Sergio Los, a pioneer in bioclimatic architecture.

The speakers’ panel included Lionello Puppi and Giuseppe Barbieri, who addressed the historical issues, alongside Sergio Los, a pioneer of bioclimatic architecture, highlighting the environmental aspects.

“Architettura per il Veneto verso uno sviluppo sostenibile” – Fiera Bené, Vicenza, 5 novembre 2005

Organizzatore e moderatore: Sophia Los

Speackers: Prof. Lionello Puppi, Prof. Giuseppe Barbieri, Prof. Sergio Los, Arch. Giuseppe Pilla. with the patronage of Ordine Architetti P.P.C.  di Vicenza.

programme: exhibition stand

client: grigiante casa bio

team: sophia los

collaborator: marta stocco

city/area: spazio casa – vicenza expo centre (VI), italy

status: completed, 2014

As part of a broader consultation related to re-organising the showroom, we designed the stand for the Spazio Casa expo in Vicenza. Grigiante are pioneering carpenters of biocompatible furniture. The pieces are made in-house, and the merchandise displayed in their showroom represents a very accurate selection of what quality living offers in the way of health and comfort. 

First of all, we tasked our commissioners to define a profile – a portrait – of the people whom the stand was addressing. The goal was to identify a suitable target for their brand and then build the exhibition around it. We simulated the house rooms adding details, accessories and photographs like on a film set, imagining how the family we envisioned would live in it. We arrived at a synthesis of the various characteristics emerging from the single components of the company. The stand was visible from afar, as a poetic tree house stood out, recalling the Fujimori pavillions, here freely re-interpreted by the company’s master carpenters.

Art: Paolo Savegnago and Stefano Zattera

Doors & windows: Infixall (VI)

Candles: Candele e Affini (VI)

programme: vinitaly stand

client: kurtin farm

team: sophia los

with: davide charlie ceccon, manuel cuman (graphic design)

city/area: verona expo (VR) – italy

status: completed, 2018

The project for this stand was designed to offer visitors an imaginary space, a life-size version of the landscape surrounding the winery, drawn by Davide Charlie Ceccon. The display introduced to the Veronese Expo the new management of the winery and the new wine labels, designed by the artist.

photos: davide charlie ceccon

programme: co-artistic direction, displays, furniture design

client: benè sentieri di benessere, morelato srl

team: sophia los

city/area: vicenza – italy

status: completed, 2006

The suite belongs to the broader project for the whole Benè – Sentieri di Benessere expo, which in 2006 included a pavilion called “Bené Wellness Resort, il Benessere Oltre la Spa”, curated by Stefano Pediconi. On that occasion, various architects designed a range of suites, unveiled at the expo.

The concept for the project comes from the desire to present hosts with a room including a small garden acting as the cardinal symbol of wellness.

The suite is a large bedroom placed between the volume of the bathroom and the winter garden.

The bathroom volume appears like a full-height wooden tapestry, hiding the sliding door that makes it possible to access the room from the shower.

The bedroom’s central element is the natural cherry wood four-poster bed, Tobia bed, designed by Sophia Los for Morelato. The bathroom is in white stone, and it features a panel made of multiple agate round pieces, acting as a backdrop to the shower. The panel is backlit, thus resembling a thousand eyes gazing at the room when the sliding door is open. The piece recalls Klimt paintings and has a remarkable chromatic effect.

Morelato Arredamenti created the wooden tapestry after a custom design, a reinterpretation of the “Zero” series, conceived to produce a dynamic wall. The effect is achieved by placing wooden laths according to an irregular pattern. The four-poster bed was presented as a prototype during the expo and was dressed with textiles by Dominique Kieffer for Rubelli, here proposing a dedicated eco-friendly line. The materials used to paint walls were eco-friendly products supplied by Spring Color. Mandruzzato Marmi made the bathroom, and Punto Verde provided the plants for the veranda. Porceilain sets by l’IDEA – Vicenza.

Benè Wellness Expo – 2005 Edition

Concept, project and organisation of the special event “Interni in Verde (published project).

Related symposium organised by Sophia Los.

First time event in Italy for Patrick Blanc. With the collaboration of Ordine degli Architetti of Vicenza and AIAPP.

“Interni in verde. The art of designing spaces with plants” – Flavio Albanese meets Patrick Blanc. Moderator: Sophia Los. Guest speakers: Marco Ferreri, Natasha Pulitzer, Martin Pontgraz, Alexis Trecoire (simultaneous interpretation: Miuccia Breda).

The possibilities offered by plants as architectural elements can help achieve a higher quality of living. Exploring how greenery can affect interiors is the central theme of “Interni in Verde”, part of the special event “Abitare Bio” by Benè, focused on highly comfortable relaxing spaces and work environments.

The “Interni in Verde” project, curated by architect Sophia Los, alongside landscape designer Luca Parolin, represents a unique mix of natural science and design. Furniture, accessories, lighting and plants are used as elements of a composition, allowing the architect to improve indoor spaces.

Greenery, outside its more evident decorative function, takes on a significant role in the distribution and organisation of spaces, becoming a green wall. Besides the known positive effect on mood and microclimates, studies led by NASA show the air-purifying properties of some species, like those used for the expo. They include smog and formaldehyde-reducing plants, like Dracaenas, Ivy, Ficus trees, and Tillandsias, which can filter several polluting particles.

The exhibited project extends across 160 sq. m, divided into an office area and a hotel suite, to better exemplify all the different plant uses in lived spaces. The display begins with the office area, moving to a living area, and ends with the hotel suite.

The symposium was recorded and distributed as an eponymous DVD produced by the Benè Wellness Expo. https://www.studiosol.it/stampa/interni-in-verde/

Published on “Interni”.

programme: concept, artistic direction, displays, eco-wellness resort event and eco-spa suite

client: benè wellness expo

team: sophia los

with: tiziano marchetto, loriana martin (graphic design)

city/area: vicenza – italy

status: completed, 2008

The 5^th  edition of the Bené expo presents 1300 m² of space dedicated to the Eco-Wellness Resort, curated by Sophia Los. A journey across technologies, materials and settings revolving around environmental sustainability. Core themes were, on the one hand, energy-saving for a more rational source management that respects the environment, while on the other, the use of natural, safe and healthy materials from the construction process onwards, and the creation of a glossary to fully appreciate all the faces of ecology.

Four elements are the protagonists and symbols of the Eco Wellness Resort: water, wood, earth and plants. The journey starts with a large area dedicated to water, dealing with the element combining wellness and ecology in their various forms. Greenery is a constant element throughout, from the bio-lakes in the water section to the ancient fruit sold in the green lounge, a winter garden. Earth is the foundational ingredient of a spa room, The suite results from a thinking process that sees the hotel room as the privileged space for wellness. No longer a box to be filled with furniture, but rather a three-dimensional room split into two levels dividing the living area with the seats and writing desk obtained from a gap in the platform, from the bath and bed area, protected by natural hemp/silk curtains. The futon on the upper level can be moved to the bedroom for a massage, while on the opposite side lies the fitted juniper wood tub. The private oudoor space, complete with vertical garden and greenery, is placed at a similar height. On the lawn, we positioned a wooden one person sauna for outdoor relaxation. 

Organiser and presenter of the talk “Ecologia per Piacere”.

Photos: Carlo Panizzolo

programme: expo displays, design and interiors construction management for the showroom, executive plans for the new office building

client: belflowers Srl

team: sophia los, renza mara calabrese, sabina bonfanti, davide charlie ceccon

collaborators: marta stocco

city/area: pontelongo (PD) – italy

status: completed, 2009 -2016

Belflowers is a company based in Padua specializing in artificial flowers. I designed many exhibition stands for them between 2009 and 2017. Together with architect Sabina Bonfanti, we planned the first editions (2009-2010), creating great lampshades covered with sunflowers, produced by Oltremondano. Sabina curated the logo restyling, choosing the sunflower as the iconic element for the company communication and branding. She arranged autumnal and Christmas panels using flowers.

Many were the theme’s incarnations for the various expos of the sector. In 2015 – for HOMI Milan – I conceived a floral ceiling with flower balls.

In 2011, I designed the new office building with Renza Mara Calabrese, although sadly, the plan never went ahead. The company preferred to renovate the interiors with a light restyling of the existing premises in 2014: for the lobby, I proposed a version of the playful sunflowers theme.

In 2016, Davide Charlie Ceccon collaborated with me in creating a Christmas-themed retail area, where his large scale illustrations gave life to an evocative, spectacular, expressive space.

Stand production: Europstand (Leopoldo Agostini)

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programme: interiors for a restaurant in the historic centre of vicenza 

client: il molo restaurant.

team: sophia los

city/area: vicenza, italy

status: completed, 2011

The project relates to the interiors of a small restaurant in the historic city centre of Vicenza. The budget available was rather limited. The two owners – a Sicilian Chef and his partner – actively worked on the construction site, carrying out some works themselves. The furniture realised by 101 – Alberto Beggio, a carpenter and yoga teacher, was built almost entirely on-site. The construction site turned into a workshop throughout the fitting-out processes that included the careful selection of bio-compatible materials. The restaurant – rather unique in town – is highly appreciated by a wide, heterogeneous public made of students, families, tourists, office workers on lunch break, professionals and the upper class.

A central feature in the project is the bench, designed with uneven bands showing the classic colours of inland Sicily to visually reduce the perception of the restaurant’s considerable length while also increasing the space’s acoustic comfort. A strip of backlit photos showing Sicilian landscapes gives the place a typical taste of the island, welcoming the guests in a unique way. Several were Federica Agnoletto – Freaks of Nature’s interventions, some of which were included in the initial project (a door, the ceiling and stairs, linen), while others were added on the commissioners’ request some years later when they decided to renovate the interiors.