This month, our TOTM is a sort of atypical one: we want to highlight, in fact, another Club Residence which has been just completed in the heart of the Crete Senesi.
The Restoration Architect there was OUR Fulvio Di Rosa, the man who brought life back to Borgo di Vagli. This is the reason why we would like to highlight this work.
He has been almost totally taken in the last 18 months by this enchanting restoration and, finally, accepted to share some of his experiences with us:
“ Panico is THE typical farm house, that looks like it had been placed by God himself in one of the most beautiful spots on Earth. If you don’t like the extreme landscape of the Crete Senesi, though, please, don’t even look at the following pictures… But if you do, you will be taken away by its vastness, integrity, and essentialness.
The ruin immediately appeared to me as a once in life finding…: perfect location, wonderful pristine views, incredibly well preserved brick structure, lots of potential lay-out “clever solutions”. The house is huge, the scale (unlike at Vagli – which is much older and hilly), so “helpful”. On the other hand, the soil of the Crete Senesi – 100% clay – is not at all a piece of cake…: to reinforce the whole structure, which was in desperate need of care, took a lot of attention and very technically advanced solutions. Once solved these issues, it has been like playing with your best toy for one and half years…
The passionate Canadian investors who own Panico, and amongst them our friends from Luxus Group, who also own at Vagli two residences, were the best possible “client” an Architect can dream to deal with: intelligent, understanding, keen in getting the best in terms of authentic Restoration and Contemporary Design. Authenticity and Contemporary Design met beautifully at Panico.
What it is extremely interesting in the typical rural Architecture in Tuscany, is that its essential core is simplicity…; nothing is unnecessary, nothing is on top. A brick wall, as a stonewall, is a piece of Art by itself! A cotto floor or ceiling doesn’t need any “booster” to be enhanced. A choke plaster is the perfect field to make the light play with it. With such a stage, it was so easy to make the purest antique rural furniture play with the most essential, minimal Italian design chairs or sofas or bed… They both have in common simplicity and essentiality and they blend perfectly.
The suspended staircase I’ve designed for Panico, is nothing else than the contemporary interpretation of the wooden staircases present in any and all rural houses; my carved stone sinks, nothing else than the conceptually tide version of the trough where the pigs or chicken were fed…; the huge brass windows of the ground floor…a wide open eye to the Crete.
It has been an incredibly demanding but rewarding work, where I was able to use all of my previous experiences – mainly the one at Vagli – and blend it with my passion for Contemporary Art and Design. I’ve to thank, once more, the Luxus Group team and the Owners at Panico to have given me the opportunity to express, in one work, all the skills and sensitiveness acquired in a life time working experience”.
Photos by Marco Grillo and Fulvio Di Rosa
Panico is available for limited rental periods; It’s the perfect destination for a once in a lifetime gathering with friends and family members, in one of the most unique and exclusive spots on the Globe.
For more information you may visit: http://poderepanico.com/
Please don’t forget to mention that you’re friends of Fulvio and Borgo di Vagli; ….certainly you will get a good discount!
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