The Greenary by Carlo Ratti and Italo Rota is designed around a 10 m-tall tree

Leading Italian design studio Carlo Ratti Associati collaborated with renowned architect Italo Rota to redesign a traditional Italian farmhouse outside the city of Parma in northern Italy. The new residence's highlight is a 10-metre-tall tree at its centre. The home is for Francesco Mutti, the CEO of Mutti, a European producer of tomato-related products. Known as the Greenary (a wordplay of “green-granary”), the bungalow exhibits biophilic design, based on biophilia, a scientific hypothesis by well-known biologist and Harvard professor E.O. Wilson who suggests that human beings share an innate desire to live close to nature. This one-of-a-kind home provides its residents the opportunity to be one with nature without leaving the premises, offering a unique indoor-outdoor living experience. The residence was built on a site that spans over 2.5 hectares of farmland that still houses several animals.

Carlo Ratti Associati is an international design and innovation practice based in Turin, London, and New York. With the Greenary, Carlo Ratti Associati and Rota aimed to merge the natural with the artificial by using technology and inventive organic materials. "The 20^the century Italian architect Carlo Scarpa once said, "Between a tree and a house, choose the tree." While I resonate with his sentiment, I think we can go a step further and put the two together. Much of Carlo Ratti Associati’s work focuses on the intersection between the natural and artificial worlds. With the Greenary, we are trying to imagine a new domestic landscape built around nature and its rhythm,” mentions Carlo Ratti, founding partner of Carlo Ratti Associati, and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Greenary houses a 60-year-old Ficus tree named Alma, which stands in the middle of the living and dining space. The tree belongs to the Ficus australis species and is well-suited for indoor conditions. Alma is a close relative of Ficus religiosa that is revered by Buddhists as the Bodhi tree, under which Gautama Buddha achieved enlightenment, and Ficus microcarpa that is found in ancient parks across southern China. The redesign and extension of the farmhouse were done with the tree as the centre point. The designers hope that this residential architecture can lead the way to more buildings incorporating biophilia.

The Greenary features a 10-metre-tall, south-facing glass wall and skylights in the living room, providing the ideal conditions for the tree to live. The farmhouse uses state-of-the-art technology to control the temperature and humidity so that the tree and the home’s residents can live together comfortably. The windows and the skylights can be opened and closed automatically to adjust the amount of sunlight and fresh air entering the house. The light-filled living room also features a weathered steel staircase, which leads to a series of landings above, that are covered by screens creating a play of light and shadows. Additionally, windows covered by perforated brick walls on either side of the living area craft a dancing pattern of light and shadow in the space. “Light enters the interior space through the pierced brick wall, corten steel stairs, and tree branches. By doing so, it also mingles with the architectural details of the house and leaves subtle shades all around it,” adds Andrea Cassi, partner at Carlo Ratti Associati.

While redesigning the farmhouse, Carlo Ratti Associati and Italo Rota were inspired by the surrounding natural landscape of Parma’s verdant farmland. The play of light and shadows in the home is evocative of a pattern seen in nature when sunlight hits a tree. Moreover, natural materials were also incorporated in other forms throughout the interiors, such as the resin flooring, which is made of soil and orange peels. “In a flat landscape in which there are no mountains, hills, or lakes, but only plains, nature expresses itself through a beautiful light that changes throughout the day. It adds a charming, almost film-like quality to the atmosphere. The environmental conditions around the Greenary inspired our design, and this represents one of the different expressions we use to illustrate the harmony between natural and artificial elements,” mentions Rota in an official statement.

The distinctive farm residence comprises seven terraced spaces, with three among them above the entrance and three below it. These dynamic, interconnected rooms reflect 20^th century architect Adolf Loos’ principle of the Raumplan with nature at its centre. In a Raumplan structure, the different levels of a building’s interior are not separated by conventional walls or floors. Instead, the spaces are connected by a series of steps and platforms, creating a fluid and open environment.

Upon entering the Greenary, visitors descend one metre to the living area and the kitchen. The dining table sits at the bottom of the 10-metre-high glass wall. It is built slightly below ground level so that the top of the table is the same level as the landscape outside. While dining, residents can look out onto the vast meadow where donkeys and other animals stroll. The other levels of the residence flow into each other, with the tree as the only constant. “Inhabiting each room will be a bit like inhabiting a tree. As the project breaks down traditional separations between rooms and floors, the Ficus becomes the organising principle of a contemporary interpretation of the Raumplan. Every level provides a different perspective on nature,” mentions Cassi.

In addition to the primary residence, the designers also converted a granary behind the house into a workspace. Encompassing both structures is a garden by landscape designer Paolo Pejrone that pays homage to the biodiversity of the local region. While this workspace does not house a tree, it showcases a similar design and material aesthetic as the primary residence. The private residence and workspace represent the first completed component in Carlo Ratti Associati’s master plan for the area. Additional planned buildings include a factory facility and a canteen-restaurant complex for the tomato manufacturing company.

Project Details

Name: The Greenary
Architect: CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati
Creative Lead: Italo Rota
CRA Team: Carlo Ratti, Andrea Cassi (partner in charge), Francesco Strocchio (project manager), Alberto Benetti, Mario Daudo, Serena Giardina, Anna Morani, Gerolamo Gnecchi Ruscone, Giovanni Trogu, Matteo Zerbi
Renderings by CRA graphic team: Gary di Silvio, Pasquale Milieri, Gianluca Zimbardi
Facade and MEP Engineering: AI Studio
Structural Engineering: AI Studio (with Luca Giacosa), Corrado Curti
Agronomy Consultants: Flavio Pollano and Paolo Battistel (Ceres srl)
Authority Approval, Accounting, Health & Safety Lead: Aldo Trombi
Planning and Works Supervisor: AU Studio
Landscape Design: Paolo Pejrone with Alberto Fusari
Construction: AeC costruzioni
Garden Cultivation: Arcadia Vivai Impianti