Inside the Home and Design Philosophy of Award-Winning Architects Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba

Where you live is a state of mind for architects and designers Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba.

“Architects design a space, but I design the way to experience that space and therefore what happens inside the house,” Serafini says, insisting that the chair one is sitting on is part of the state that person is “living” in in that moment. The Citroën C1 she arrived in this morning (part of a special project with Rossana Orlandi), for example, is another refuge, she emphasizes, noting she designed the car’s elaborate bodywork tattoo motif.

Upon meeting the two on a rainy Milan morning, all guests are offered cake, as Palomba explains he’s also a baker now. As the group takes a bite of a tea cake with orange zest, one realizes that an interview with the two is really more about getting to know them than getting to know things about them.

For the greater part of 30 years, the award-winning Palomba Serafini have designed everything from collections for and to lighting for Foscarini and Artemide, in addition to envisaging the hotels, homes and even the interiors of yachts for the future.

The two admit not one home is considered their permanent residence as they live a life constantly on the go, but one of them, a 2,260-square-foot urban oasis a few steps away from the Centrale train station, is perhaps most indicative of their design philosophy. The sounds of honking horns and ambulances quiet as soon as one reaches the top floor and enter their home through an elevator, which is their no-fuss front door.

Designed for the modern nomad, Palomba and Serafini design homes to fit the needs of the dweller, which is why their latest home was built from an empty open space, and the first thing one notices is the dressing rooms at the entrance, where, like a snake that sheds its skin, one can de-robe from the pollution from the outside and enter the home in clean clothes.

“I would never do another wardrobe in a bedroom, ever again, after this. The sleeping zone is the purest and most intimate part of the house and this concept is very important to us,” Palomba declares. Both designers are barefoot as they give a tour, with their feet experiencing the materiality of flooring they experimented with: silky, raw concrete with a resin effect coating.

In addition to changing clothes at the door, Palomba has another rule: no dining room chairs. “I hate them! Via (Be gone)!” he exclaims in Italian. Instead, a team of glass vases by Borek Sipek, including the Florian II he designed for Driade, cover the Enzo Mari glass “Cugino” table like a museum exhibition.

Another striking detail is the Arrival lamp situated in the entrance that the duo designed for Artemide, fashioned in the essence of the succulent figs of India plants that are abundant in Palomba’s native Sardinia. The Sardinian landscape has greatly inspired their work, especially Palomba’s. His aunt was a ceramicist whose work echoed the bulbous art and artifacts that originated from the land’s Nuragic civilization dating back to 1800 BC. Serafini, who was born in Rome, is the daughter of a renowned female architect who played a significant role in the renovation of historic palaces (dating from the years ranging from the 1400s to the 1800s).

Palomba draws the attention to the Lama chair he designed for upscale Italian furniture maker , a painted steel structure that extends in a seductive ergonomic shape. “I designed this for Ludovica. Everything I design is for her… See, she can read, she can have a coffee, she can sit with her legs up,” he says.

Serafini stifles a laugh, trying to seem unamused as she discusses how a photo of them should be shot on the couch. The two debate over whether or not the scratches their dog etched into the Piano Alto couch they designed for Zanotta are visible or not, finally shrugging their shoulders and sitting as they normally “are” — Serafini perusing her phone and Palomba leaning against the couch on the floor reading a book.

A dark, romantic Caravaggio-esque scene is created behind a rounded bare wall in a kitchen they designed for Elmar covered with a dark, metallic lacquer. Not a speck of clutter can be spotted aside from a bowl of fruit illuminated by an LED light.

Creating a sense of space, de-cluttering and not holding on to old stuff is something Serafini is adamant about. Their only daughter, they explain with great pride, is a special needs educator. Ginevra, they say, has a different ethos despite being raised by two aesthetes who create maximum space with essential elements. “My daughter and I spent the COVID[-19] lockdown in here. And at a certain point she brought a sewing machine home…. she was afraid I would be upset… and it surprised me, but she found her own creative comfort zone with it,” she reminisces.

“Everything that is is superfluous remains outside… and after a while you realize that you don’t want it. And it’s because we have an intrinsic system of values based on consumerist ideologies that we need everything. In reality, if you stop for a minute, you realize you appreciate what you really need,” she muses.

Upstairs, in an attic space, treasures abound: the “Scrittarello” desk by the late master architect and designer for DePadova, a Berber carpet and their Soffio lamp for Foscarini among them. A terrace opens up to reveal a row of potted lemon and fig trees.

So the tour ends. Guests leave the purity and serenity inside and face the frenetic streets with dismay, their approach to living forever changed.