House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

A staircase is extruded from the wooden shelves of a bookcase at this renovated house in Tuscany by Italian architects Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

Named House in a Pine Wood, the single-storey residence was first constructed in the 1960s on a sandy site that is closely surrounded by pine, oak and myrtle trees.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

The architects re-clad the exterior of the house in travertine marble and constructed a wooden deck around the perimeter.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

Windows are deeply recessed and some are hinged at the centre so that they swivel open.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

This is the second house in Italy we’ve featured in the last week, following a gabled house with boxy windows.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

See more projects in Italy »

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

Here’s some more text from Sundaymorning:


Context

The pinewood of Marina di Castagneto Carducci was born early last century as a result of a process of reclamation of the coastal dune belt.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

In the late Fifties architect Giancarlo De Carlo draw up an urban development characterized by the large presence of the landscape, in which buildings, surrounded by dunes dotted with pines, oaks and myrtles, with strong character and individuality are connected by paths that follow the free conformation of the landscape.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

The consequence of this, but especially because a rapid process of tissue development built since the Sixties, is the heterogeneity of the architectural presence: buildings realized with quality, often characterized by the use of stone walls as an expressive character, with formal features that often do not disdain to look at the best Italian and European experiences of the Fifties, are counterbalanced by buildings of little value, inconsistent in their morphological and decorative devices, often the result of successive transformations and uncertain.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

Opportunity

The work presented here was created by the occasion of a renovation of a summer residence built in the Mid-Sixties. The poor architectural quality of the existing building is an opportunity to think about the quality of the landscape in which the building stands on a sand dune, surrounded by pine trees located in singular points, often very close to the walls.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

The project outlines a double perspective: on one hand the need to find a synthesis between the nature of the building – although still to be discovered – and the morphological and color values of the place where it is located, the other hand the desire to place the character of the interior in keeping with a trend made of comfort, domesticity, appropriateness. All this applies especially in the modulation of light and views, to the extent and shape of spaces, in the discretion of the materials.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

A longitudinal ideal director, through the whole building, allowing you to find a convergence between two significant operational aspects: firstly, the redefinition of the internal space, which translates into a sequence of rooms through closely related to each other and with the landscape surrounding, and secondly the identification of the character of the building in a new morphology, at the same time natural and archetypal, finding in the horizontal sediment a new axpressive character.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

From these thoughts descend the criterion of remodeling openings in the building: almost all different but built taking into account both the sequence of the interior, the relationship between the room and the external balance, the relationship mass-punching of the building.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

This is especially evident in the large dining-room window, at the end of successive openings of the same size, framing a view of the dune landscape.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

Matter

The emergence of the archetypal character of the intervention is manifested in the morphology of the new shape, which highlights the double-pitched roof and a certain compact terminals in the two fronts – but mitigating these formal features in the central, predominantly horizontal.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

The material used for the exterior, a travertine marble, helps to read the morphology of the building as a result of an ideal unit mass made of different sediments, giving further color consonance with the surrounding landscape.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

The limited range of materials – travertine marble cladding also present in the interior, plaster, teak wood, used to give continuity to the horizontal planes inside and out – helps to make a presence in the pinewood grove that thrives on a refined ambiguity: while providing a comfortable refuge from the outside world, both within himself introduces the landscape that surrounds it.

House in a Pine Wood by Sundaymorning and Massimo Fiorido Associati

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Glenmorangie Artein

Single malt Scotch whisky born of stone and finished in Super Tuscan casks

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Joining Finealta and Sonnalta PX in Glenmorangie’s Private Edition range, Artein is fantastic single malt that combines ripe fruit aromas with zesty notes of spearmint and citrus. Its unusual flavor profile received the thumbs up from everyone at CH HQ who had the opportunity to sample it.

The first thing that stands out is the deep, rich caramel color. The nose definitely bears the mark of the Scotch’s finishing—initially aged in white oak bourbon barrels, Artein is a blend of Glenmorangie 15 year old (around 2/3) and 21 year old (around 1/3) whiskies which are then transfered to Italian Super Tuscan wine casks for marrying and “extra maturation”. The Super Tuscan casks lend just enough flavor to enhance an already fine whisky, and avoids the unfortunate over-flavoring of some other finished whiskies. Super Tuscan wines are known for the intense terroir of the rocky terrains in Italy’s Tuscan coast, and the relatively strong 46% Artein remains pleasantly manageable in terms of volatility, allowing the palate to open up nicely when a few drops of water are added.

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Named after the Gaelic word for “stone”, Artein uses the hard water from Glenmorangie’s Tarlogie Springs. Naturally filtered through layers of limestone, the spring is one of Glenmorangie’s well-protected secrets. The distillery takes inspiration for its signet from the Cadboll Stone, an ancient carved “pictish” stone. For Artein, Glemmorangie wanted to produce a whisky that exemplified the rich mineral characteristics of stone at every turn.

Artein is available for purchase from specialty retailers as well as online.


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