Houzz Tour: Italian Auto Shop Fulfills Its Residential Potential
A couple of design pros balance industrial materials with artwork and upcycled furniture in their new house in Milan
Sabrina Sciama
January 14, 2019
A couple hunting for a house is nothing new. But if she is an architect and he is a designer, you can bet they’ll wind up with something that’s packed with personality and interesting space-saving solutions. This is exactly the impression conveyed by Stefania Micotti and Matteo Dall’Amico’s home in Milan.
Finding and creating the perfect place to settle down and start a family was neither quick nor easy. “This was originally an auto shop. The first time I saw it, I wasn’t particularly impressed,” Dall’Amico says. “It was Stefania, with her architect’s eye, who spotted its potential. When we arrived, it was just a shell.… It looked like an undefined box. It took a lot of imagination, but turning it into a place of our own was a really fun challenge.”
Finding and creating the perfect place to settle down and start a family was neither quick nor easy. “This was originally an auto shop. The first time I saw it, I wasn’t particularly impressed,” Dall’Amico says. “It was Stefania, with her architect’s eye, who spotted its potential. When we arrived, it was just a shell.… It looked like an undefined box. It took a lot of imagination, but turning it into a place of our own was a really fun challenge.”
Photos by Angelita Bonetti of Monad Visual; styling by Alessandra Chiarelli
House at a Glance
Who lives here: Architect Stefania Micotti and designer Matteo Dall’Amico, who have a daughter on the way, and their 7-year-old dog, Giulia
Location: Milan
Size: 2,153 square feet (200 square meters); two bedrooms, two bathrooms
Micotti and Dall’Amico bought the former auto shop in 2016. It’s located inside the inner courtyard of a building and had been part of a larger redevelopment of the entire property. The firm that had handled the redevelopment, Baroni + Piscone, had already rezoned the structure for residential use.
House at a Glance
Who lives here: Architect Stefania Micotti and designer Matteo Dall’Amico, who have a daughter on the way, and their 7-year-old dog, Giulia
Location: Milan
Size: 2,153 square feet (200 square meters); two bedrooms, two bathrooms
Micotti and Dall’Amico bought the former auto shop in 2016. It’s located inside the inner courtyard of a building and had been part of a larger redevelopment of the entire property. The firm that had handled the redevelopment, Baroni + Piscone, had already rezoned the structure for residential use.
The unit was a shell with no finishes or even window frames, but Micotti and Dall’Amico were impressed by the huge space and its industrial feel. The large windows and the facade’s overall look hinted at the building’s nonresidential nature. The couple chose to emphasize these elements, using them as a motif. M.G.M. was the contractor for the project.
Micotti and Dall’Amico balanced the industrial theme with more domestic architectural and stylistic choices. “We didn’t want to exaggerate the industrial feel of the building because that would have made it too trendy and not very livable,” Micotti says.
The new steel windows and doors have large panes that echo the original windows in a more contemporary key.
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Micotti and Dall’Amico balanced the industrial theme with more domestic architectural and stylistic choices. “We didn’t want to exaggerate the industrial feel of the building because that would have made it too trendy and not very livable,” Micotti says.
The new steel windows and doors have large panes that echo the original windows in a more contemporary key.
Find a general contractor in the Houzz pro directory
The pair found some of their vintage and antique furniture pieces at antiques markets. Others were heirlooms. The walls are decorated with original sketches by Mario Botta, works of art by Sergio Pappalettera and photos by Masiar Pasquali.
Browse artwork in the Houzz Shop
Browse artwork in the Houzz Shop
The couch in the living room repurposes parts of Dall’Amico’s grandmother’s bed. Another part of the bed will go in their daughter’s bedroom. The armrests were made out of the foot of the bed.
A blue wall separates the living room and the kitchen. Another part of the bed was made into the low bookcase on the right.
The recovery and restyling of vintage furnishings were key parts of the pair’s design process. Micotti and Dall’Amico not only designed the spaces and the furniture, but they also upcycled pieces or made them from scratch.
“This choice was driven by the desire to surround ourselves with family heirlooms, which bear the warmth of memories, as well as by an ethical and anti-consumerist desire to preserve what already exists,” Micotti says. This also translated into savings on remodeling costs.
“This choice was driven by the desire to surround ourselves with family heirlooms, which bear the warmth of memories, as well as by an ethical and anti-consumerist desire to preserve what already exists,” Micotti says. This also translated into savings on remodeling costs.
The finishes throughout the house have a subtle retro feel. One example is the hexagonal ceramic tile on the kitchen floor.
Shop for hexagonal tile on Houzz
Shop for hexagonal tile on Houzz
Steel is a recurring theme throughout the home and was used for the structures of the table, countertop and kitchen stools. Steel doesn’t feel cold here because it’s always paired with wood. The owners designed and built the kitchen cabinetry and bookcase in white-painted steel and birch. The light-colored wood in the furniture is matched with darker vintage pieces.
The white metal structure in the kitchen was a stroke of luck. “An acquaintance of Stefania’s was dismantling part of an exhibit at Expo 2015, which I promptly took, cut apart and rewelded together,” Dall’Amico says. He then used the same material for handrail on the stairs, the frame of the bed upstairs and the table on the terrace.
The white metal structure in the kitchen was a stroke of luck. “An acquaintance of Stefania’s was dismantling part of an exhibit at Expo 2015, which I promptly took, cut apart and rewelded together,” Dall’Amico says. He then used the same material for handrail on the stairs, the frame of the bed upstairs and the table on the terrace.
The ground floor consists of the living room, the kitchen and this bathroom. The floor is painted concrete with an Ultratop System gloss finish by Mapei.
The vanity was made based on the homeowners’ design.
The etched-iron spiral staircase was already in the building. It is covered in a textile by Kvadrat to make it homier and less slippery.
The second floor houses two bedrooms and a second bathroom. Upstairs, the ground floor’s industrial concrete gives way to a light-colored floor.
The steel motif continues here in the bed frame and the covering on the step to the terrace.
Birch storage containers are built into the bed frame.
Micotti and Dall’Amico refinished the vanity and the vintage mirror in the second-floor bathroom.
The second floor opens to a terrace. This open-air living room is a good match with the interior spaces. Here, too, Dall’Amico’s touch is evident in the iron table, whose top is decorated with majolica tile recovered from a nearby building.
The plant life is constantly evolving, turning this terrace into a serene spot.
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The plant life is constantly evolving, turning this terrace into a serene spot.
More on Houzz
Read about other homes around the world
Find a pro for your home project
Shop for home products
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Beautiful, the old and new, industrial and modern, all merges seamlessly into a bright, warm, inviting home. These people have style.
Such a nice apartment! I love the windows, and the terrace is particularly nice, but is upstairs off the bedrooms. I wonder if they considered putting the bedrooms on the ground floor and shifting the kitchen/living room upstairs so that the terrace could be accessed from these "public" spaces. It would be difficult carrying meals up those stairs from the kitchen.
Beautifully designed space, with one exception: why so many stairs, twists, and turns in the bathroom, with the tub? It looks like a serious trip hazard.