LIMOLO BIO ARCHITECTURE
A restoration full of stories to tell…
In the month of May 2021, having completed the most extensive phase of the renovation with the refurbishment of the roof and the facade on via Battisti in Cabras, working ourselves in contact with its material, we understood that it was the house that “commanded”, that required to maintain its identity through its spaces and forms that we have respected with the least invasive solutions possible.
We have explored another sense of “sustainability” and a great opportunity for personal and professional growth has arisen for all those who have worked there. “The unfinished”, the lack of advanced materials and imperfection have become the subject of discussion and reflection on the border between traditional construction techniques and art, conservation and re-functionalization. Through them we have touched a new mode of expression. Limòlo Eco House is a story of experience, of local traditions and knowledge, extraordinarily fused with architecture, design and art.
Thus Limolo, the Guesthouse set up for responsible tourism, proposes an idea of “Living” rethought in terms of narrative and circular economy, of a tourist stay dedicated to the experience and knowledge of the territory.
I hope you enjoy your stay as much as we loved this journey at Limòlo!
Daniela, the owner
The schematics and the structure
Limòlo Eco House was born from the union of two typical Campidanese houses. The plan of each is the recurring one with the rooms facing the central atrium. Other rooms, once the stable, sa dom’e forru (the bread oven room) and the oil and wine warehouses, are now used as the rooms of the accommodation facility. They overlook the courtyards, once a farmyard, chicken coop, lime pit, vegetable garden and citrus garden, today green gardens with a mitigating function for internal temperatures and designed to contain irrigation.
Protected from the mistral wind and reserved for each room, today, if necessary, they become places for sharing and celebrating.
To preserve the character and identity of the house, we have studied solutions that would adapt the needs of use for housing and accommodation purposes to its original structure, avoiding major demolitions and upheavals of the original plan.
That is why today Limòlo Eco House is made up of 6 rooms, all with private bathrooms and all different from each other. All made with natural materials. Each with its own characteristics and peculiarities.
Raw earth architecture, heating and cooling
The structure still has the original walls in raw earth bricks for almost all of the vertical surfaces.
During the restoration we excluded any proposal that involved damage or replacement of the raw earth walls with cement-based materials including those of the 110% eco-bonus. We have in fact assessed that the required systems would have damaged the raw earth walls unnecessarily and irreparably. The raw earth material is incompatible with the classic coats proposed in polystyrene or other synthetic materials. In reality, the thermal inertia verified makes the expenditure of such interventions superfluous, whether driving or driven, contrary to our philosophy and decidedly outdated in concept.
We have found sustainable solutions to provide heating and cooling without thermal systems, in the manner of the “batiment frugal” described by Sophie Brindel Beth in the homonymous essay.
The heating from a low-consumption cast-iron wood-burning stove located in the large atrium is sufficient for the entire surface of the central body.
Passive shading systems set up in the gardens and ventilation paths created with special strategic holes in the walls opposite the openings, create natural ventilation capable of lowering the internal temperature by several degrees compared to the internal one in the summer.
Raw Materials
The restoration of Limolo is characterized by a meticulous search for local and/in any case natural raw materials. A work within a work that has allowed us to select small companies and artisans who are sometimes even unknowingly engaged in green architecture. Calce Idraulica and lime putty have replaced any superfluous cement. Natural pigments and oxides have given color to the walls. Water-based colors on the fixtures. Chestnut wood and reeds were used for the roof, floors and many internal structures. We don’t know what plastic is in Limolo. In this way we had to restore ancient construction techniques and where the memory has been lost, let ourselves be guided by experience and more often by the material itself.
This made us a step closer to our goal to make Limòlo Eco House one of the most green and environmentally friendly Guesthouses in Cabras and Sardinia!
Once upon a time there was an oven...
A wood-burning oven could not be missing in a house favored by bio-architecture. Strictly in raw earth, personally made by Luciano Pia. Architect, Artist, master of Green engaged here in a very different test from that of “his” 25 Green in Turin, inspired by the current of organic expressionism and constructivism of Russian origin.
More than a wood-burning oven, it is an artistic installation that brings an oven inside. The architect’s signature: an olive tree that surmounts it in greenery in an inexplicable union with the Gaudi-style chimney, which also spews smoke and flames like a furious dragon when the oven is in operation.
It is a functional work for the zero kilometer cuisine favored by the owner. Thanks to some special expedients, it has drafts which, when properly regulated, allow different types of cooking but also to practice the smoking of foods.
All the material is strictly natural and mostly recycled.
“The oven suitable for this context had to be alive. Uncontrollable. Tremendously bestial, disturbing and reassuring at the same time, of organic shapes we don’t know which ones. Of raw and cooked earth. Of joy and play because even when you grow up you can still go back to the land of toys. Unrepeatable like the shape of fire in every moment”. Luciano Pia
Gardens
From the landscape architects Leo Minni and Italo Vacca, a fundamental imprint on the gardens of Limolo. Plants with low water consumption which at the same time bear the necessary greenery for a good aesthetic impact, outlined in the contours by a simple construction site grit. Citrus fruits integrated with other fruit trees ensure fruit production. But above all, all these plants bring passive solar protection to buildings which prevents them from overheating in summer. Solutions that all together contribute to efficient choices that are very different from the use of plants, even if powered by renewable energy. In this way, consumption is eliminated or truly reduced to a minimum without detriment to living comfort.
Discover how gardens and common spaces look like today!
Housing well-being
The internal thermo-hygrometric regulation is carried out in a natural and continuous way by the clayey and lime masonry masses. Lime-based plasters allow rooms and common areas to breathe, giving the environment healthiness and hygiene in a natural way. The rigorously wooden windows and doors, often recovered from previous demolitions and improved by the sole application of thick glass, provide for the appropriate natural exchange of air and the migration of vapour.
Furthermore, earthen walls mitigate the magnetic waves and the propagation of radio waves to which we are constantly exposed.
The house contributes with an active role to the well-being of those who stay there. He lives on the mistral air and therefore boasts of not having air conditioning or other electrical devices.
Facade
I enjoy contrasts. The facade of Limolo was the ugliest in Cabras. Now, I shouldn’t be the one to say this, she’s the prettiest. An exercise in “pure bio-architecture” where the top experts of the materials used have tried their hand without the help of workers. The arch. Maura Falchi for the design of the facade, the restoration of the dimensions, the colour. The architect Luciano Pia for the texture of the wall and the frames. The architect Antonella Manca for the Terra di Nicosia color mixture and the lime and lime putty based paint. Green building: Lime on raw earth structure. Materials It’s up to you to judge the result….
Interior Design
If you ask Limolo why this is the case, no one knows how to answer. Me neither. There is no explanation for intertwining combinations guided by the energy of the place, which has attracted famous architects, photographers, navigators, sailors, explorers, writers, naturalists, etc. etc.
Even the interiors are furnished by riding the carousel of combinations, without a predetermined project, creating relationships that often recall some work exhibited at the Mona in Hobart.
We have saved many pieces of furniture and built others following two rules: we look for or use what we have to say who we are. Let’s give used objects one last chance and let them live in a different context and for different uses, it will be up to them to express themselves and conquer their place other than the Eco-centre. The result must be beautiful and if possible pass from bio-architecture to artistic creation. It is not trivial or obvious. A champion of the subject has made many of these accommodations in Limolo. Today we boast a conspicuous heritage of results in the circular economy.
PRENOTAZIONI
Per richiedere informazioni e prenotare la tua stanza a Limòlo Guest House puoi inviare un messaggio tramite il modulo di contatto o, se ti è più comodo, inviare una richiesta di disponibilità via WhatsApp al numero +39 392 4812458.
