A private apartment in Pomezia

Pomezia is a municipality located south of Rome, between the Castelli Romani, the Tyrrhenian sea and the presidential estate of Castel Porziano, with which it borders for a short distance. The young city « invented » out of nowhere (the first stone was laid in 1938 following reclamation of the Pontina area) was built in an area previously covered only by woodland and marshes. What was then a small village inhabited by a few dozen farmers gradually expanded to become a small city with a population of 65,000, a process that was largely driven by the intense post-war industrialisation and subsequent development of the tertiary sector. To meet the demand for housing, large residential complexes have recently been built. One of these, part of a wider project for the construction of housing units with on-site access to essential services (the as yet uncompleted plan includes schools, sports facilities, a shopping centre and children’s play areas), is the location of an interesting and modern private residence. This rectangular-plan apartment with a total floor space of 176 square metres on the second floor of a five-storey building was created by combining three smaller apartments (one 71 square metre three-room apartment and two 48 and 54 square metre two-room apartments) that were originally planned for the southern side of the building. The apartment was delivered by the builder already divided up according to the new layout, complete with standard water and electrical systems (subsequently modified) but lacking windows, doors, taps, sanitary fittings and floor and wall coverings. These were subsequently personalised as part of the interior design project by Gildo Meucci for Profili di Luce. The daytime area shows a preference for open spaces, the kitchen and dining area being separated from the living room only by a partial wall section. A large opening in the wall allows for visual communication between these spaces. The long night area corridor leads to the entrances to the two bedrooms, the laundry room and the master bathroom. With the exception of the bedrooms, which use walnut coloured rustic parquet, the whole apartment is tiled with Steelwork collection porcelain in colours silver and steel from Ceramica Fioranese. « This product played a very important part in our project, » explained Gildo Meucci. « It has a vitreous ceramic layer incorporating metallic micro-granules capable of creating iridescent reflections. We took the floor covering as our point of reference to establish a connection with all the spaces. » The colours, lights and materials throughout the apartment were therefore specifically chosen to highlight the floor. Very pale colours are used for the finish of the walls and ceiling: extremely light grey for the resin coated walls and glossy paint of the same colour solely for the lowered ceilings. The colours chosen for the furniture are shades of grey, white and in some cases wood, such as American walnut in the living room. A wooden partition was placed along the north wall to create a relaxation area with a specially designed plasterboard bookcase, a study corner and armchairs. The south wall dominates the rest of the living room with its cement coloured travertine marble style paintwork, cabinets and television. With the obvious exception of the suspension lamp over the dining table, the lighting is almost entirely indirect, provided by fixtures set into the false ceilings and the plenums so as to accentuate the quality of the light itself. Appropriate light sources (energy-saving lamps and LEDs for their low environmental impact) create the desired effect on the ceiling. The false ceilings, all made of plasterboard, were installed at various heights. In the kitchen and living room it was necessary to lower the ceilings by thirty centimetres to accommodate both the lighting fixtures and the air conditioning ducts. In the master bedroom the false ceiling extends downwards and incorporates a television set.