A remarkable architectural collaboration between Buenos Aires-based Adamo-Faiden and Rome-based SUPERVOID has transformed a five-story early 20th-century building in Rome's San Saba neighborhood. The 2023 project represents a thoughtful reinterpretation of the historic structure while successfully adapting it to contemporary living standards.
The renovation completely reconfigured the apartment's layout, making a bold decision to relocate the living areas from the Via Flaminio Ponzio façade to the internal terrace. This strategic move allowed the architects to create a stronger connection between indoor and outdoor spaces, fundamentally changing how residents experience the home.
The kitchen now opens onto the terrace through a new large folding glass door that frames the surrounding landscape and allows the interior space to merge seamlessly with the outdoors. This design choice maximizes natural light and creates a sense of expanded living space that extends beyond the building's original footprint.
A new external staircase, carefully aligned with the building's central axis, establishes a fluid dialogue between interior and exterior spaces. This connection unfolds through a series of intermediate spaces that are elegantly divided by metal structure and polycarbonate sliding doors, creating a gradual transition between different zones of the home.
The architects made striking material choices that contrast beautifully with the building's original thick brick walls. Many interior elements, including doors, window frames, fan coil casings, the kitchen, and selected furniture pieces, are clad in steel sheet. This treatment creates a dematerializing effect on these components, producing subtle visual and light reflections throughout the space that add depth and sophistication to the interior.
Continuity between interior and exterior spaces is reinforced by a handcrafted terracotta floor from Fornace De Martino in Salerno. The warm, monolithic texture of this flooring material runs across the entire level, creating visual unity and a sense of flow that enhances the connection between different areas of the home.
The terraces are conceived as a sequence of open-air rooms, thoughtfully framed by perimeter vegetation that extends the living space into the surrounding landscape. This approach transforms what could have been simple outdoor areas into functional extensions of the interior living spaces.
The project team included lead architects Sebastian Adamo and Marcelo Faiden from Adamo-Faiden, working alongside Anna Livia Friel, Benjamin Gallegos Gabilondo, and Marco Provinciali from SUPERVOID. Construction management was handled by Benjamin Gallegos Gabilondo, with Emilia Fernández serving as project director. The collaborative effort also involved several other professionals, including structural engineer Pasquale Leonardi and various project collaborators from both firms.
This renovation demonstrates how historic architecture can be sensitively updated for contemporary use while respecting the original building's character and context within Rome's urban fabric.
