Nestled on the shoreline of Lago Maggiore, Villa Mosca Bianca embraces its natural landscape, merging sustainability and lifestyle within it’s form. The layout and atmosphere has been designed as a reflection of the owners day-to-day routine to be a setting for meditation, outdoor dining and water views whilst visiting his holiday home in the outskirts of Lake Como. The materiality and form of the architecture extends to the landscape – to show that relation and the scale of it was the key point of my image.

Set in what was once a thick pine needle forest, a terraced landscape was carefully carved out opening up the house to the expansive lake beyond and a stunning, 180 view of sunsets over the surrounding mountains. The villa’s form undulates to create alternating internal rooms and external terraces like a series of fingers moving between inside and outside as they reach into the landscape.

At its heart is a central atrium housing a 70-year tree. The tree garden and atrium is open to the sky flooding the residence with natural light and visually connects the surrounding rooms and central staircase, whilst acting as a rain water collector and a passive air system for the villa. Complementing these systems: solar panels, rain water collecting and heat pumps help to produce 60% of the villa’s sustainable energy.

From the villa’s interiors. the landscape terraces down to the waterfront, providing plenty of moments for pause and reflection starting the day with harvesting vegetables from the organic garden for breakfast to dinner to gathering around the outdoor fire-pit after sunset. Each of these moments have become part of the client’s daily routine facilitated by an architecture that allows them to live, breathe, and play in this sustainable and comfortable ambience.