It’s a Stairway. It’s a Greenhouse. It’s Definitely Not a Chicken Coop (But Don’t Tell the Chickens)
In Genoa, an architect and a mathematics professor connected two levels of a historic estate with a whimsical pavilion—and then rented a flock of fowl to bring it to life.
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In a walled garden in Genoa, Italy, where Filippo De Mari Casareto Dal Verme’s family has lived for about 150 years, a massive, mint-green staircase recently appeared. Designed by local architecture, design, and landscape studio Caarpa, the folly-like structure connects two levels that were previously joined only by a circuitous path. It also includes a glass-encased space where Filippo, a mathematics professor nearing retirement, plans to "read, paint, listen to music, do nothing, and sleep."
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Mandi Keighran
Design and travel writer based in London.