Conceived in the 1970s by Ferdinando Fagnola and Gianni Francione, the complex of villas is nested in the earth, in a village close to the Costa Smeralda in Sardinia. The vitality, spatial qualities, environmental sensitivity and community spirit that inspired the project forty years ago are renewed, thus reviving a little-known episode of the best Italian architecture, that arises from the ground.
The villa overlooks the north-east coast of Sardinia in Italy, creating a dynamic form guided by the desire to integrate the built into the natural environment, and for this reason a series of rigorous volumes, that slit the ground like wedges, generate a series of relationships and spaces. The villas tend to disappear into nature and blend into the vegetation.
Already in their first realization, the villas were designed to establish an almost mimetic relationship with nature, which distanced itself from the Mediterranean vernacular that was popular in the area. The complex had to conceal itself rather than appear, so the buildings emerge from the ground and their mysterious and severe forms are designed to relate to space and the topography.