Casa Collina

Location: Montagnola, Collina d'Oro, Switzerland
Year: 2022
Type: New house
Area: 310 m²
Client: Private
Status: Completed 2022

A double-height white living room with a wall of dry-laid stone and a cantilevered stair with a glass balustrade

A white house built around a single wall of dry-laid stone, gathered from the hill when the foundations were dug.

Materials

Site stone, laid dry
Lime plaster
Bleached oak
Low-iron glass

Digging the foundations turned up more stone than anyone knew what to do with. We kept all of it. Two masons from the Valle Maggia spent a summer laying it, without mortar, into the wall that carries the stair and runs the full height of the house.

Everything else steps back: white plaster, pale oak and glass that hides its frames. The wall changes through the day, grey in the morning and almost pink at sunset.

Each stone was chosen by hand and laid with its best face out. The wall is nine metres high and holds every tread of the stair.

Close view of the dry-laid stone wall behind a frameless glass balustrade — Fig. 02The stone wall behind the balustrade · Site stone, laid dry

A stair hall lined in stone with a glass balustrade, looking down to the entrance — Fig. 03The stair hall, looking down

A white sofa with linen cushions under a floating stair, against the stone wall — Fig. 04The living room under the stair