Inserted within the preserved perimeter of a former factory in Lendinara, PDS House reconfigures an industrial enclosure into a residential interior organized around an enclosed garden, using landscape and sectional relationships as primary architectural drivers.
PDS House Technical Information
- Architects: QB Atelier
- Location: Piazza dello Statuto, Lendinara (Rovigo), Italy
- Gross Area: 300 m2 | 3,229 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years: 2019 – 2024
- Photographs: © Pietro Savorelli
The project is guided by an idea of landscape that unfolds through a play of closure and openness of view.
– Filippo Govoni and Federico Orsini, QB Atelier
Reclaiming an Industrial Envelope
PDS House is the result of the adaptive reuse of a disused industrial structure on the western edge of Lendinara, an area where former production sites now coexist with housing and public green spaces. Instead of erasing the existing fabric, the project retains the perimeter masonry wall as a stabilizing and spatial device. Reinforced where necessary, this enclosure preserves the site’s memory while establishing a firm, introverted boundary toward the public square.
The irregular top profile of the street-facing wall and the twin-gable silhouette recall the stratified industrial constructions that once characterized the area. These traces are neither restored nor mimicked; they are held as formal outlines against which new volumes are inserted. By maintaining blind walls and inherited limits, the project reframes constraints as tools for spatial definition rather than obstacles to domestic inhabitation.
Within this masonry shell, demolition and reconstruction are carried out selectively. The former factory outline becomes a container for new timber and steel structures, allowing the house to inhabit the footprint of the original building while redefining its internal scale and program.
The Secret Garden as Spatial Generator
The removal of the factory roof produces the project’s defining space: an enclosed garden conceived as an open-air room. More than an accessory courtyard, this garden functions as the organizing core of the house, supplying daylight and ventilation to spaces otherwise shielded from the city by the perimeter walls.
High vertical proportions and planted surfaces reinforce the sense of enclosure, while climbing vegetation visually connects the private garden to the treetops of the adjacent public park. Surface treatments vary by edge: larch wood defines the entrance side, while a fully glazed façade mediates between garden and living spaces, transforming the exterior into an extension of the interior spatial system.
The garden establishes orientation and rhythm within the house. Its presence anchors domestic life around seasonal change and filtered light, translating the surrounding landscape into a controlled yet perceptible interior condition.
Domestic Interior as a Sectional Landscape
Inside, the house unfolds across two levels, organized around a double-height living area facing the garden. This vertical void links floors visually and spatially, allowing circulation and inhabitation to occur in a continuous section rather than discrete planes.
A tall glazed internal façade, framed by a lattice of glulam timber, forms the main interface between the garden and the interior. The timber structure recalls the cadence of industrial frames while softening their expression through material warmth and craft. Its extension into the roof structure reinforces the twin-gabled profile and emphasizes the vertical rhythm of the space.
Secondary volumes, including a small rear courtyard and adjacent building segments, introduce depth and complexity to the section. Voids, setbacks, and framed views generate layered spatial relationships that counterbalance the compact footprint imposed by the preserved envelope.
Opacity, Transparency, and Urban Mediation
The project is defined by a sharp contrast between its outward opacity and inward openness. From the public square, the house presents itself as a continuous wall punctuated only by a small iron door, withholding any direct visual access to the domestic interior.
Crossing this threshold initiates a sequence of spatial transitions: from a public park to a concealed garden, and from the garden to glazed living spaces. Each step recalibrates the relationship between exposure and privacy, replacing immediate visibility with deliberate progression.
Through this controlled choreography of openings and closures, PDS House negotiates its position within a residential context shaped by historical layers and shared green spaces. Architecture here acts as a mediator between memory and inhabitation, using landscape as an operative element rather than a backdrop.
About QB Atelier
QB Atelier is an architecture practice founded in 2010 in Ferrara, Italy, by Filippo Govoni and Federico Orsini. The studio’s work is guided by the principle of “quanto basta” (“just enough”), an approach that emphasizes measure, balance, and the careful use of available resources. From private residences to public projects and urban transformations, QB Atelier’s architecture seeks to reconcile functional rigor with experimental attitudes, grounding design decisions in human experience, environmental conditions, and the reinterpretation of cultural and material contexts.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Structural engineers: Elisa Maniezzo
- MEP consultants: Mechanical engineering and safety: Gustavo Bernagozzi; Electrical systems: Castellan Mirko e Matteo Snc; Plumbing and mechanical systems: Massimo Chinaglia
- Client: Mainardi Nicola Srl
- Construction company: Lavori Industriali Srl
- Timber structures: Segheria Lombardi
- Paints and drywall: RS Restauri Srl
- Windows and doors: Schüco profiles set up by Fraccarollo Primo & C. Srl
- Flooring and wall covering: Edilmebas
- Custom furniture: Zadra Interni
- Photographer: Pietro Savorelli
- Communication partner and press office: The Architecture Curator
- Research references or publications: QB Atelier monograph, Pacini Editore, 2025
