Mar 22

Mar 22 Casa Scopello by Oscar Piccolo and Évoque Lab

Designer Oscar Piccolo envisions a home inspired by his childhood in Sicily. Together with Milan-based 3D design studio évoque lab, Casa Scopello is a collective blend of memory and imagination, with a nostalgic influence on form and function.

Reeme: Which elements of domestic life in Sicily do you remember most vividly?

Oscar: My fond memories of being in Sicily are centered around family. My dad brought me a ''Treccina'' (a sugared brioche) every morning, my mum told me to drink my pear juice, play on the floor with a city made out of bricks, my grandma cooking with the tv turned on, a photo of the pope surrounded by figurines of saints hanging on the wall just below a clock.

Casa Scopello by Oscar Piccolo and Évoque Lab on Anniversary Magazine

R: How did indoor living blend with the natural world outside?

O: As my family and I would spend our summers in Sicily, our casa'scasa's doors and windows would always stay open during the day/night. There were no physical boundaries between the two, and their seamlessness became quite natural; indoor chairs would make their way outside, and figs, lemons, and oranges would claim their territory across our living spaces. An orange tree that was once relatively small grew its way to the second floor, where the kitchen is, and has now become a feature of my family'sfamily's casa - you can pick an orange right from the kitchen's window without having to step outside.

R: How might your childhood perspective have influenced your process?

O: Having few toys in Sicily has pushed me to explore what was around me to play with. Using bricks, bottles, paper, chairs, fallen branches, and rocks has allowed me to use my imagination and think beyond the constraints of what is in front of me; bricks would act as skyscrapers one day and something else the next.

One recurring memory is of me playing on the terracotta floor. I was always on the floor for some reason. It's something that I still find comfortable to this day, as I often find myself sitting on the floor rather than on a sofa or a chair.

R: What else has influenced this particular work?

O: Sicilian culture and its objects are central to the compositions. From having multiple ashtrays/wooden bowls around the house to the pan drying outside the window, various details are deeply embedded with the domestic spaces on the island. The Carruba sweets (my great grandfather's favorite) scattered here and there, the calendar one would be gifted with at the ''meccanico'' as well as the Sellerio books in the living room; all these elements have a core role in defining a Sicilian casa and its occupant's way of living.

R: I also sense a vision of the future in Casa Scopello.

O: I feel, to an extent, yes. While I find it very hard to come at ease with the idea of settling someday, having moved from country to country continuously, I hope to end up in a defined place. So, while the compositions are deeply inspired by my childhood, they also represent a hopeful future in which I have finally settled down surrounded by my objects and loved ones.

R: How was it communicating this blend of memory and imagination with design partner Èvoque Lab?

O: Developing these compositions with Évoque Lab has been so lovely. Emanuele being Sicilian and Paola being Pugliese, we've realized how important our southern roots have been and continue to be when working. Making the imagery was very straightforward, as the three of us understood the importance of memory in this project. We really took our time developing and nurturing it to a point where we feel we have conveyed elements of our childhood, creating a solid bond and friendship.

Évoque lab - Emanuele Longo and Paola Frascerra: Initially, from the first conversations, it was fun to remember all those elements that blended our childhoods [and] thanks to those points in common, we began to know each other better and to create a good relationship of collaboration and friendship.

Discovering how the aspects we remembered were translated and repurposed in different ways was fascinating. A theme we deeply care about is light and its ability to crystallize mystical atmospheres, in this case, being able to bring us back to the summer afternoons spent in the South in our childhood.

R: What does Casa Scopello tell us about traditional casas in Sicily? Are any real-world solutions or restrictions addressed in the design?

E and P: We were not interested in representing a space already present in reality (that is part of Sicilian history as it was and where it was) but rather to propose contemporary and hybrid domestic spatialities that make use of the cultural heritage of Sicilian tradition - made of timeless symbols and gestures that have marked us - while also using precise spatial shapes and motions that silently frame and enhance the different episodes, telling the life of a house and the people who lived there, capturing some atmospheres of it.

O: The structural aspect of the house was based on the simple principle of ''una casa sul mare'' meaning 'a'a house by the sea'' - a sort of ode to the simplicity of homes in the South of Italy. The house's architecture reflects this, from the tiled floor to the plastered walls, the wood oven in the kitchen, the courtyard terrace outside, and the use of wood and primitive materials combined. The casa's layout and scale are balanced by the warmness of the materials and objects used, so while the ceilings are high and the rooms quite dispersive, the overall feeling is that of a home.

We also wanted to ensure we emphasized and included elements of the ''every day''; the rock on the terrace, for example, or the wooden pegs used to hang laundry. The sculptural pieces, paintings, and bowls are complemented by a TV remote, an old telephone, and a string door curtain, similar to the one I'dI'd get tangled in at my Nonna's house.