A Playground for Experimentation: Casa Ermete in Rome by Punto Zero.

If contemporary wisdom suggests we are our hardest critics, then surely, when it comes to designing your own home, we become our hardest clients as well.

This is the position Giorgio Marchese, founding director of Rome-based architecture and interior design practice Punto Zero, found himself in when transforming an apartment in the heart of Oppian Hill into his new home. He shouldn’t have worried, though. With help from Gianluca Panetti and his own team, the apartment became a playground for ideas and experimentation.

“Being your own client is the most unlikely operation there is. This is why the project has matured in the continuous dialogue with my sentimental and professional partners, Gianluca and Arianna,” Giorgio explains. “We wanted a house that moved around light, and it was the search for sight and brightness that made us overturn the original functions of the apartment.”

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Located in a building that dated back to the 1900’s, Punto Zero transformed the classic linear plan through new volumes and unexpected elements—while staying true to the soul of the space.“We wanted to keep traces of its 20th-century origins—the old grit floors with designs, the ceiling frescoes rediscovered during the works, or the original doors—while at the same time welcoming a rock soul, through a series of choices of elements and colours that highlight the new contemporary lymph,” explains Arianna Nobile, studio founder alongside Giorgio.

The updated plan revolved around dark resin “boxes” planted in the space that acted as structural interventions. Placed within the bedrooms—and taking the place of traditional walls they separated the sleeping areas from the rest of the interior while also functioning as bathrooms. Fluted glass strips allow light to stream in from the neighbouring “rooms”.

The same resin highlights the new volumetric interventions of the house, enveloping all the walls. This was paired with giant moveable panels, original doors and camouflage doors, allowing the designers to play with the perception of space, visually expanding it or vice versa, when needed.

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The star of the living area is the super-glossy dining table designed by Punto Zero with minimal lines. “A prototype of a line we are working on, also in the coffee table version. A search for lines and shapes to bring together a design attitude from the 70s, and our essential contemporary spirit,” Giorgio elaborates.

The walls are dotted with various works of art by contemporary artists including Luca Capuano, Ernesta Caviola, Arianna Matta, Umberto Pintore and Yara Bonanni, as well as large maps. “An old one from the Municipality of Rome from the 1960s and one of Lazio, the collection was born from the desire to orient oneself, to find oneself in a city that is not ours but that has us adopted and welcomed in its greatness always to be discovered. The collection is just started,” Giorgio concludes.

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[Images courtesy of Punto Zero. Photography by Serena Eller.]