Studio house in Varese. Prefabricated wooden building for working in Nature

Architect Luca Compri's LCA architecture studio designs its own professional studio, immediately demonstrating its desire to create sustainable architecture by choosing not to use any other territory

The site chosen to build the new headquarters of the TAU/LCA studio of Architect Luca Compri is characterized by an area near the center of Varese which was initially used as a small warehouse. The existing building has been demolished by the designers who develop the new building on the same site

The project idea is very simple: it is a prefabricated wooden building with a rectangular plan, 8 meters high. The ground floor is made up of three plastered and therefore opaque "boxes" alternating with two transparent "boxes"; the large windowed surfaces put the interior spaces in close transversal relation with the garden. In this way, the relevant greenery becomes the protagonist of the work space: work in the nature

On the first floor, the directionality of the building is opposite, no longer transverse but longitudinal; the building opens on the short sides and hosts a large projecting meeting room to the east and a loggia to the west that overlooks a small park

The roof, partly integrated with photovoltaic panels has two pitches and is reminiscent of the houses without eaves designed by the children; the cladding of the roof is the same as the vertical walls on the first floor: it is a sheet of graphite-coloured metal; in this way, the building has an extremely contemporary look while maintaining its status as a homestudio

The wooden frame structure, the insulation and the wood fibre cladding, the use of very few glues, the reduced consumption, the excellent quality of the building, the heat pump and the controlled mechanical ventilation system, the radiant floor, the internal and external lighting completely managed with LED lamps and other features guarantee a very high energy saving and make this building extremely comfortable for those who work there. The building has received the house climate class A certificate

The garden features lawns, flowerbeds, bamboos, Japanese maples, black stones and wooden decks used in the warmer season for additional work and relaxation areas