1:1 Study Model is an ongoing transformation of a two-story house in Arzignano into a lived-in laboratory where construction and habitation proceed concurrently. Anchored by a helical stair and a small dome, the project probes thresholds, material stratification, and water as architectural matter, with its process made legible through full-scale fragments, working models, drawings, and photographs.
1:1 Study Model Technical Information
- Architects: AMAA
- Location: Arzignano, Vicenza, Italy
- Project Years: 2024 – 2026
- Photographs: © Simone Bossi
A house as a laboratory, a place where architecture and life coincide. The dwelling becomes a living organism in transformation, where chaos is language, error is opportunity, and every element contributes to the everyday narrative of space.
– Marcello Galiotto, AMAA
House as Laboratory: Open-Ended Dwelling and Thresholds
The project treats habitation as a continuous protocol rather than a final state. The family’s decision to live on site during work collapses the distance between author, user, and builder, allowing routines to test spatial choices in real time. Thresholds remain provisional or absent, and separation is negotiated through curtains, furniture, and changing alignments of daily objects. This open-endedness foregrounds timing and occupancy as design variables rather than afterthoughts to be accommodated once construction is complete.
A strategy of subtraction and selective addition reframes a bourgeois interior toward a stripped “cave” condition. Finishes are peeled back to expose primary volumetric relations, structural grain, and light paths, then recomposed with discrete insertions that recalibrate scale and circulation. The design advances through direct dialogue with craft and materials rather than exhaustive drawings. Site conversations, mockups, and reversals become instruments of discovery that keep the architectural intent agile while preserving the raw legibility of the type’s original shell.
This approach treats thresholds as temporal devices. Openings and partitions are adjusted to regulate sound, privacy, and microclimate as needs shift from week to week. Architecture here is measured by its tolerance for change, its capacity to accommodate imperfect alignments, and its willingness to register use as part of its final appearance.
Spatial Armature: Helical Stair and Dome
A helical stair operates as the project’s spatial armature. It concentrates structure, movement, and sightlines into a single device that organizes the plan without relying on enclosing walls. The stair mediates between ground-floor cave-like density and upper-floor openness, framing oblique views across rooms and back toward the entry. Its geometry accepts on-site improvisation, allowing treads, balustrade, and landings to reconcile dimensional tolerances discovered during demolition.
Surface treatments turn the stairs into a readable palimpsest. Layers of spray-applied coating mask and reveal stone, brick, plaster, and concrete beneath, converting the object into a sectional record of construction strata. The chromatic uniformity achieved by the spray consolidates disparate components while leaving a granular topography that captures dust, touch, and light, making patterns of use visible over time.
The stair culminates beneath a small dome that produces a calibrated vertical pause. Light entering at the crown structures the daily sequence of ascent and descent, shifting with weather and time of day. The dome’s shallow reverberation and focused brightness reset scale at the top landing, aligning domestic ritual with a concise moment of skyward orientation.
Material Tactics and Construction Logic
The work proceeds through full-scale in situ trials. Details are tested, adjusted, or abandoned based on how they perform during construction and in occupation. Error functions as feedback within a learning-by-making methodology, exposing tolerances and prompting revision. This cycle replaces prescriptive detailing with a framework that prioritizes performance, repairability, and assembly clarity.
A hybrid palette is unified through surface strategies that register time and use. Exposed masonry, patched plaster, and poured elements are consolidated via selective coatings that even the perceptual field without erasing texture. The result is neither roughness for its own sake nor cosmetic finish. It is a calibrated coherence that keeps the memory of previous states legible while establishing new datum lines for future additions.
Domestic contents form an operative layer within the spatial syntax. Books, toys, artworks, and personal collections remain in circulation, not withdrawn during construction. Their arrangement produces a living archive that tests shelf depths, circulation clearances, and light levels. The house reads as a working document, where inhabitation edits the architectural proposition daily.
Envelope, Water, and Representational Tools
The envelope treats water as both an environmental resource and a visible phenomenon. A bespoke roofing device developed with the artist Nero collects and choreographs runoff across the roof surface, with a limited-edition tile marking the point of capture. A transparent downspout continues the system, turning hydrologic behavior into a legible section that can be inspected and maintained. The system makes weather an explicit actor in the domestic scene while clarifying drainage paths that are often concealed.
Physical models and 1:1 fragments function as design instruments. A large model at the entry discloses the stair’s logic and its junctions, while full-scale sections demonstrate how coatings bridge heterogeneous substrates. These artifacts are not post-facto illustrations. They form an iterative loop with the site, allowing decisions about connections, tolerances, and sequencing to be vetted tactically before commitment.
Documentation is treated as a construction tool. Ongoing sketches, Polaroid photography, and a process diary consolidate site observations and exchanges with collaborators into an evolving brief. This record keeps multiple temporalities in view, aligning technical adjustments with shifts in family use and seasonal performance. Representation, therefore, becomes a medium for decision-making, ensuring that the built work and its narrative of making remain inseparable.
About AMAA
AMAA – Collaborative Architecture Office For Research And Development – is an architecture studio based in Venice and Arzignano, with a pop-up office in New York since 2024. Founded by Marcello Galiotto and Alessandra Rampazzo, the studio explores architecture through an iterative process of construction, research, and material investigation. Their work emphasizes the dialogue between historical and contemporary forms, often using full-scale prototyping and local craftsmanship to achieve spatial clarity and expressive tectonics.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: Marcello Galiotto and family
- Other contributors: Artist Nero / Alessandro Neretti
