Casa della Sughera is the renovation and extension of a 1970s house on the Sardinian coast, where a new central void reorganizes two existing wings around views of Tavolara, a preserved cork oak, and a sequence of terraces descending toward the sea.
Casa della Sughera Technical Information
- ArchitectsGosplan Architects
- LocationLoiri Porto San Paolo, Sardinia, Italy
- Gross Area185 m2 | 1,991 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years2020 – 2025
- Photographs© Anna Positano | Studio Campo
The central space is void, traversable, and relational: a device that places functions, views, and materials in tension.
– Gosplan Architects
Reworking a 1970s Sardinian House
Set on a steep site above the waters facing Tavolara, Casa della Sughera reworks a coastal dwelling whose original form consisted of two pitched-roof wings. The intervention retains these recognizable fragments while inserting a new volume at the upper level, making the altered building legible as an assemblage rather than as a seamless replacement. The result is a house that steps with the terrain, moving from the shaded hillside entrance toward the pool terrace and the sea below.
The project draws on the organic vocabulary developed along Sardinia’s northeastern coast during the 1960s and 1970s, particularly its use of thick plaster surfaces, irregular masonry, curved edges, and roofs understood as inhabitable terrain. Rather than treating these references as a stylistic repertoire, the renovation uses them to resolve the practical demands of an existing structure on a difficult slope. The retained wings anchor the house in its construction history, while the central addition recalibrates orientation, access, and the relationship between enclosed rooms and exterior platforms.
The roof plan clarifies this negotiation between old and new. Hipped terracotta roofs remain over the original wings, while the inserted central element becomes a continuous white terrace punctuated by tapered chimneys. Their battered forms establish a distant formal correspondence with the limestone mass of Tavolara, visible beyond the bay, but they also register the roof as a constructed landscape with parapets, benches, steps, and outdoor rooms.
The Central Void as Spatial and Climatic Device
The primary operation is subtractive. A central void cuts through the formerly compact plan, connecting the rear garden around the cork oak to the living spaces, pool terrace, and southern horizon. This opening is not merely an internal courtyard. It is a traversable spatial hinge that gives the two retained wings a new relationship, turning their previous separation into a sequence of crossings, overlooks, and framed views.
From the rear facade, deep-set oak-framed openings look through the house toward the pool and Tavolara. In the other direction, the void reconnects sea-facing rooms to the rising hillside and to the mature tree that gives the house its name. This two-sided orientation is significant on a site where the panoramic view might otherwise dominate the plan. By making the uphill garden spatially active, the project establishes a more reciprocal exchange between the dwelling and its terrain.
The void also improves environmental performance through spatial configuration rather than added technical apparatus. Its open connections admit daylight deeper into the plan and support cross-ventilation between the sheltered rear slope and the exposed waterfront facade. The sequence from garden to interior to terrace tempers the transition between climatic conditions, allowing shaded, semi-enclosed, and open-air spaces to mediate the strong Sardinian light and seasonal winds.
Material Layers, Thresholds, and Domestic Elements
The house is articulated as a material section across the slope. Rough local granite forms the lower level, extending the language of retaining walls into the facade and producing irregular arches around small openings. Above, rough white plaster unifies the new central volume, roof terrace, parapets, and chimneys. The contrast is not simply chromatic. Granite reads as embedded and load-bearing, while the upper plaster mass is shaped by light, shadow, and the occupation of outdoor surfaces.
On the seaward elevation, a projecting timber balcony and pergola create an intermediate depth between the granite base and the pool deck. The horizontal timber structure overshoots the building perimeter, providing shade and extending domestic occupation beyond the enclosed rooms. Its thin supporting posts and layered beams introduce a lighter construction against the dense masonry, while the balcony frames oblique views along the coast rather than treating the panorama as a single frontal image.
Inside, basalt paving in irregular polygonal pieces continues from the living area toward the pool, producing a continuous ground plane across the threshold. Built-in plaster seating, a sunken lounge, fireplace benches, storage niches, and oak joinery reinforce this continuity. Furniture is therefore not applied as an independent layer but incorporated into the thickness of walls and floors. In the sleeping areas, handmade terracotta introduces a warmer, more contained atmosphere beneath the exposed timber roof structure, distinguishing private rooms from the more mineral public spaces.
Landscape as Circulation and Topographic Structure
The landscape functions as a circulation system across the site’s changing elevations. Granite retaining walls, broad stairs, planted terraces, and narrow paths connect the upper entrance level to the pool and waterfront edge. Rather than flattening the slope into a single garden platform, the design accepts the terrain as a sequence of thresholds. Each level produces a different relation to the house, from the compressed rear garden to the broad, exposed pool terrace.
The mature cork oak is preserved within a sunken outdoor room shaped by curved white-plaster walls. A stair winds around the tree, linking the roof terrace to the garden below and making the oak both a fixed ecological presence and a spatial marker within the circulation route. Granite monoliths and stepping stones interrupt the planted ground, establishing a measured transition between the hand-worked plaster enclosure and the more rugged terrain beyond.
Mediterranean planting reinforces this gradation between architecture and coastal maquis. Rosemary, santolina, tulbaghia, agapanthus, stipa, olive trees, mastic, and other drought-tolerant species gather along retaining walls, pool edges, and paths. Their varied heights and textures soften the hard limits of stone and plaster without concealing the site’s topography. At the pool, grasses and flowering perennials form a low planted edge, while denser shrubs and trees tie the upper garden back to the surrounding hillside.
About gosplan
gosplan is an architecture studio based in Genoa, led by Nicola Lunardi, Veronica Rusca, and Lorenzo Trompetto. The practice approaches architecture as a narrative medium that generates meaning through space, establishing new relationships between forms, ideas, and people. Their work explores architecture as both a constructional art and a shared form of thought, with research pursued through exhibitions, conferences, teaching, publications, and cultural initiatives.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Structural engineers: SEM Signorelli Evaso Moncalvo Ingegneri Associati
- MEP consultants: Studio tecnico Pizzorni, electrical and mechanical engineering
- Landscape designers: caarpa
- Client: Private
- Design team: Lorenzo Trompetto, Nicola Lunardi, Veronica Rusca, Marina Mori, Vittoria Bonini, Selene Vacchelli, Gabriele Molfetta
- Wooden window frames and bespoke furnishings: Falegnameria Bacher Sas
- Photography: Anna Positano | Studio Campo
- Communication partner and press office: The Architecture Curator
- Research references or publications: Luigi Vietti, Alberto Ponis, Michele and Giancarlo Busiri-Vici, and Jacques and Savin Couelle
