An urban garden for Villa Badia

The historic Villa Badia, home to the Miler art gallery, closes the spatial sequence of the old core of Capolago, a village of passage and, in earlier times, also a point of embarkation toward Lugano. The orientation of the villa does not follow that of the village core, but rather that of Melide Lugano. With the construction of the SBB railway, the direct relationship with the lake was cut off, bringing with it a major source of noise pollution. The cantonal road behind the villa and the municipal parking lot at its side have further surrounded the building with sources of noise. The project consists in creating an introverted space through a new interpretation of its relationship with the surroundings, giving the villa a new spatial quality while protecting it from noise emissions. Three reinforced-concrete wall elements define the space: A linear wall runs along the railway line and ends in a cylindrical volume. This wall acts as a sound barrier and is integrated into the SBB noise protection scheme. A wall with a canopy articulates the entrance from the north side, from the municipal parking lot, emphasized by a wooden gate set between the semicircular wall and the connecting wall leading to the villa. A stepped structure on the south side restores the introverted courtyard character of the space through a raised part of the garden, from which the view opens once again toward the lake and Lugano, as it did in the past. This enclosure of reinforced-concrete walls restores spatial dignity to the property through the articulation of a sequence of spaces. The garden is arranged within a clearly defined setting: an introverted urban garden.