Set high above the Ligurian coast with spectacular views of the mediterranean sea, the Alassio Hills building is conceived as a quiet negotiation between the cultivated landscape and the town’s layered architectural memory. The apartment building is embedded into a steep site where terraces, retaining walls, and garden rooms are as much a part of the local vernacular as tiled roofs and pale stone façades in the villages below.
From the outset, we wanted the architecture to feel of this place—not as an imported object, but as an evolution of what already exists: the agrarian logic of the hillside, the measured rhythm of Mediterranean living, and the distinct relationship between country, city, and sea that defines the Italian Riviera. Alassio’s urban life sits close to the shoreline, but the hills immediately behind it belong to a different tempo—olive groves, cypress silhouettes, dry-stone walls, and long views that unfold in layers. Our ambition was to let the building participate in that topography: to “arrive” as a series of terraces rather than a single gesture, and to read as something shaped by the slope as much as by program.
The massing follows this idea of stratification. Broad horizontal planes step with the terrain, forming generous outdoor rooms—loggias, balconies, and roof terraces—that extend domestic life outward into the landscape. Rather than framing the view as a single panoramic spectacle, the building offers a sequence of perspectives: toward the sea, across the hillside gardens, and back to the textured rooftops and stone structures that stitch the region together. In doing so, the project adopts a familiar Ligurian attitude—architecture as an intermediary between interior and exterior, shelter and openness—while expressing it through a contemporary clarity and precision.
Materially, the building is anchored by travertine—chosen not only for its timeless tactile quality, but for its deep cultural resonance within Italy. Travertine carries an unmistakable association with Italian architecture across centuries; it is a stone that has shaped Rome’s monumental legacy and continues to embody a sense of permanence and quiet authority. In the Alassio Hills building, we use travertine as a unifying envelope: it gives the façades a soft mineral luminosity that responds to the bright coastal light, while also lending the volumes an almost geological presence—like a continuation of the stone terraces and retaining walls that define the hillside.
This is where the project’s balance of “traditional” and “exclusive” becomes most important to us. We were never interested in literal imitation of historic forms; instead, we aimed for an architectural familiarity achieved through proportion, material honesty, and a respectful relationship to the landscape. The building’s contemporary character is expressed through its restrained detailing, expansive glazing, and the way outdoor spaces are carved out as inhabited thresholds. Glass balustrades and large openings lighten the mass, allowing the architecture to feel both grounded and airy—solid where it meets the slope, and increasingly open where it meets the horizon.
The surrounding landscape is not treated as decoration, but as an architectural counterpart. Steep plots can be challenging, yet in Liguria they are also an invitation: the terrain naturally suggests terracing, planting, and the creation of outdoor “rooms” that follow the hillside’s logic. Here, the building is enveloped by layered gardens—an inhabited terrain of steps, stone, and vegetation—so that from many angles the architecture appears to emerge from the landscape rather than sit on top of it.
In the context of Alassio—where the life of the town meets the slower rhythms of the countryside— The Alassio Hills building is meant to be read as a composed backdrop to everyday living: discreet, enduring, and finely made. It belongs to the hillside through its terraced stance and mineral palette, and it belongs to the contemporary moment through its openness, precision, and quietly luxurious calm. It is, for us, a project about continuity: extending the language of the place without nostalgia, and offering a modern way of inhabiting the Italian Riviera that feels both rooted and effortless.
