Villa Capodivacca

The Building

Building pre-intervention

Building post-intervention

Building post-intervention: UNIGE_VillaCapodivacca_renovation_003.jpg

Building post-intervention: UNIGE_VillaCapodivacca_renovation_005.jpg

Building post-intervention: UNIGE_VillaCapodivacca_renovation_007.jpg

Building post-intervention: UNIGE_VillaCapodivacca_renovation_009.jpg

Building post-intervention: UNIGE_VillaCapodivacca_renovation_010.jpg

The main building of Villa Capodivacca, built in XVI century and later enlarged, is based on three levels. The villa develops around the space of the central passing salon, with a large coved vault. It has undergone, in the following centuries, various interventions of enlargement and transformation; of the XVIII century is the raising of the volume, with the addition, on the main facade, of the triangular tympanum typical of the Venetian villas. The main body of the villa is flanked by a park of ancient trees and is connected to the colonnaded body of a farmhouse, probably built in the early 1800s. The ground floor is the original core of the complex (XVI century). Built initially as a fabric used to stall the goods arriving from the river, the ground floor consists of a large passing hall. On the sides of the hall are the rooms, four corner rooms of almost square shape and two service rooms. The first floor assumes the characteristics of the noble country residence: the subdivision of the rooms faithfully reproduces that of the ground floor but the heights, materials and finishes are adapted to the different use compared to the rooms below. The rooms on the second floor were originally used as servants' quarters. From a rural and holiday residence, used mainly in summer, the Villa has been transformed during XX century in permanent residence of different families. The situation has changed with the sale of the villa, which has been purchased by three different families, which are located on three different levels and each floor has been used for a different purpose. The building belongs to the Venetian villas system. The location of the villa and the architectural typology make this artefact a fascinating testimony to the civilization of the Venetian villas which had in Jacopo Sansovino and Andrea Palladio two of its greatest interpreters. The complex is made up of a group of buildings along the course of the Bacchiglione river, inside a fund that today measures just over three hectares and is located in a bend in the right bank of the river. The intervention is classified as important renovation but also restoration, as it concerns a listed building. This means that load masonry walls, horizontal timber structures and brick vaults (over the ground fool), as well as timber roof structure are preserved and consolidated. The same for internal and external plaster and other finishing materials (as roof tiles).

More Details

The Solution

Solution post-intervention

What is the Solution?

The new windows, recurring to traditional materials (wood) have a better performance. The choice was to keep a frame made of traditional, natural material (wood) with better energy performance (it was not a question of preserving seventeenth-century frames). The new windows have similar shape and materials to the existing frames (timber). The frames are in lamellar larch wood and the double low emissive glass (3 + 3) has argon gas in the air gap.

Why Does it work?

The solution improves energy performance by replacing existing windows and doors with new double-glazed windows. Their replacement is approved by the protection bodies because existing windows the existing windows had already been replaced around the 1970s and therefore did not constitute elements of historical and architectural character to be protected.

PROS

1. Improving the energy performance of window frames and glazed parts with a new type of windows. 2. No historical material loss due to the previous works on the building.

CONS

1.The production and transportation of new high-performance windows involve embodied carbon, which must be balanced against operational energy savings. 2.Loss of original materials that can no longer be recovered and original appearance of the complex

Window Type before retrofit

Casement Window

Window glass type

Double

Window frame material

Larch Wood

Window position

Inside

Shading

Outer shutter

Health issue

information not available