Italian architect Enrico Scaramellini squeezed this narrow holiday house into the passageway between two farm buildings in the Alpine countryside of northern Italy.

The house is named Wardrobe in the Landscape, in reference to the wooden shutters that swing open and closed across the narrow, closet-like facade.

Wooden panels are painted grey on the exterior, but left to their natural colours on the interior walls, floors and ceilings.

The building widens at the back, creating space for a single room.

Other retreats we've featured include an arrow-shaped house in Japan and a house on a sled in New Zealand.

See more stories about holiday homes »

Photography is by Marcello Mariana.

Here's a project description from Enrico Scaramellini:

The project is based on two specific conditions: - on one side the client’s needs, looking for a small and intimate space; - on the other a small, special and precious place. The alpine landscape dominates the place: it becomes evident the condition of a privileged and unique space.

The concept of size guides the project. Great is the land, the landscape: small is the place, the space. There is a mutual relationship that inspires the design process. What is the role of the "room" in relation to the landscape? How the landscape reflects, "adopts” the room? The point of view changes in a frenzied search for balance.

A micro retreat for weekends, a place for contemplation, a clearing house from a daily hectic urban condition. A small wooden box fits between two existing buildings. Inside, the wood shows its nature in warm tones; outside, the surface treatment with silver-gray paints echoes the colors of the centenarian woods of rural buildings.

Site plan

The wooden panels, assembled with different development of the vein (horizontal - vertical), react to sunlight returning different geometric compositions.

Ground floor plan

Outside, almost in a mimetic condition, the new wooden facade seems to hide itself, in the shadows of the landscape, and then to confirm, with sunlight, its presence, dazzling, throwing a visible signal at a long distance.

First floor plan

Inside, the space becomes a privileged place overlooking the landscape. Almost an abstraction, an estrangement that allows to emphasize the privileged status of the "spectator". A second level of thinking regards the stability of the building’s image in the landscape: spaces lived for short periods consolidate their status of "closed" places.

Section

The light that reflects differently on the wooden panels changes the appearance in colors and tones, the uninhabited façade lives of its own life. Finally, the project underlines yet another ambiguity: as a wooden container, as furniture and furnishing, it is "a wardrobe in the landscape".

Elevation - click for larger image

The project operates in small size, uses simple devices to find a contemporary language within strongly characterized environmental contexts.