Modern farmhouses

Over the centuries, isolated agricultural settlements have established a vital human presence in the countryside and are now an important part of the rural architectural redevelopment underway in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region. With this in mind, engineer Luca Monti and architect Lorenzo Rapisarda from studio M2R, together with engineer Luca Medici, developed the Casalgrande Hotel project in Salvaterra di Casalgrande. The typology and layout of the Casalgrande Hotel are based on a careful analysis of traditional rural settlements in the local Emilia-Romagna area. These farmhouses were made up of nuclei consisting of two buildings (one for habitation and the other for sheltering animals and storing tools) arranged around a central courtyard, which was the main focus of the family’s activities. By the same principle, the hotel — which is directly accessible from the provincial road linking Sassuolo and Rubiera — is divided into two buildings arranged around a central green courtyard. The buildings are oriented and positioned within the site so as to be protected acoustically from the road.
The two main volumes are connected by a ground-floor passageway block and both have a double-pitch roof emulating old farmhouses. Although modern, the colours of the materials have been chosen to blend in with local buildings. For this reason the lower building, containing the reception, hall, bar area and meeting room, is made of exposed reinforced concrete coloured in harmony with the facing bricks of the nearby farmhouses. The three-floor building, containing 42 rooms with views onto the countryside or the green courtyard, features a complex sequence of thin and deep vertical and horizontal weathering steel elements which create an appealing pattern of filled and empty spaces while blending harmoniously with the earth and wood tones of the surrounding countryside.
The architects devoted special attention to the design of the furnishing elements and the lighting. Modern and elegant ceramic tiles were chosen for the surfaces in the entrance, the common spaces and the areas connecting to the guestroom floors, in harmony with the design, furnishing and lighting objects that grace the hotel spaces. The warm colours of the exteriors contrast with the refined and ethereal interiors, which feature white painted walls and ceilings and porcelain tile floors with metropolitan appeal that fits well with the wenge wood furnishing elements. Ceramic tiles from Serenissima (Stile collection, Urban Chic colour) clad the horizontal surfaces inside the two «farmhouses», enveloping the stairwells and corridors like a ribbon.