Vertically sliding walls open Bergmeisterwolf’s Italian villa extension to the garden

Architecture studio Bergmeisterwolf has completed an extension to a house on the shores of Italy’s Lake Garda, featuring glazed walls that disappear into the ground to open the living area up to the garden. The client for the project – an economist from Vienna – wanted an addition that would add value to and improve the functionality of a villa originally constructed in 1680. Bergmeisterwolf, which is based in South Tyrol in the very north of Italy, was tasked with expanding the home’s floor area and optimising the connection between the internal spaces and the large garden. “We needed to design an extension tuned with the existing building in a way that they both enhance each other,“ said the studio. A new single-storey volume constructed from black-dyed concrete adds a contemporary counterpoint to the existing house, which the client and his family use as a holiday home. The textured surface of the concrete complements the plaster facades of the main hous