Casa Alkymia in Monteverde Vecchio is a 230-square-metre apartment renovated by Rome studio Punto Zero, which treats colour as a structural element rather than surface decoration. The project takes place inside a 1930s palazzetto, and the architects worked with the building’s rationalist bones rather than trying to modernize them completely. “We reinterpreted the arches of the exterior façade and the rationalist curved forms as recognisable elements within our project,” the studio’s founders Arianna Nobile and Giorgio Marchese explain.
Instead of following modern open-plan orthodoxy, Punto Zero reworked the layout to suit the family’s daily routine. They carved a large structural opening between the kitchen and living areas to loosen circulation and bring natural light deeper into the apartment. A sculpted plasterboard counter-wall, filled with arches, recesses and curves, choreographs the windowed walls and that new opening into a single composition. “This solution allowed us to visually recede the pre-existing windows, so that their varying proportions could coherently fit within a harmonious composition,” Marchese adds.
The new counter-wall also serves to bring the terrace space “inside the home.” The design creates a visual link between the interior rooms and the outdoors, effectively expanding the living area. Terrazzo floors provide the connective work throughout the apartment, with fine anthracite grain at the entry giving way to a coarser, more colourful aggregate in the living room. Brass inlays trace the transitions, running straight through doorways and swooping into curves along the corridors.
Related: How to watch Macy’s 2026 fireworks for free
Colour as structure
Colour is the defining feature of the renovation. Working with colour consultant Blu di Prussia, the team assigned each room its own emotional register. The kitchen walls and ceiling are wrapped in powder pink, while the master suite features a saturated carmine paired with black terrazzo. “In this way, we created a sort of red box within a pale green box,” Marchese says, describing a spatial hierarchy borrowed from old-world suites.
Blue-toned ceilings in the children’s room bring the lofty proportions down to a more intimate scale. The furniture includes a mix of design heavyweights, such as a Cassina Bramante sideboard, a Warren Platner for Knoll armchair, a Gino Sarfatti pendant, and a Renato Guttuso lithograph. The result is a study in how bold colour can bridge the gap between old architecture and contemporary living.
It is rare to see an older structure so thoroughly reimagined without erasing its character. In many similar renovations, the original bones are often hidden behind glass or concrete, yet Casa Alkymia respects the 1930s rationalist logic of the palazzetto. The architects did not simply add new elements; they integrated them into the existing language of the building, using the curves and arches as a framework for the colour and layout rather than treating them as obstacles to be smoothed over.
