In Florence’s Santa Croce district, DEFERRARI+MODESTI reimagines Casa GZ as a contemporary home in active dialogue with the former monastery of San Francesco de’ Macci. Pietra serena columns, rediscovered frescoes and views towards the monastery’s former vegetable garden become more than historical traces: they form the material framework for a new domestic landscape. Through a radical reorganisation of the plan, bespoke furniture, saturated colour, art and objects carrying family memories, the project allows different periods to coexist without nostalgia, turning the apartment’s layered past into an architecture for contemporary everyday life.
Ιn the heart of Florence’s Santa Croce district, DEFERRARI+MODESTI has completed the renovation and interior design of Casa GZ, a groundfloor apartment in a nineteenth-century building transformed into a bright, eclectic and contemporary home for a young family. The building stands beside the former monastery of San Francesco de’ Macci, founded by the Poor Clares in 1349, in an area still defined by a strong sense of history and an intimate atmosphere. The house overlooks what is now the Borgo Allegri garden, once the monastery’s vegetable garden, and shares a long internal wall with the historic complex.
This wall is punctuated by original load-bearing columns in pietra serena that extend throughout the apartment.
This physical and material connection with the building’s history became one of the project’s starting points. The existing pietra serena columns suggested that the apartment might preserve further traces of its past. A series of exploratory tests, carried out with the support of a conservator, revealed frescoes dating from different periods. One of these was restored and left visible in the children’s bedroom, becoming a discreet yet central presence in the narrative of the house.
“The project began with an exploration of a highly layered home, where the pietra serena columns, the rediscovered frescoes and the relationship with the former monastery could not be treated simply as decorative features. We sought to allow them to emerge naturally, creating a balance between historical memory and contemporary everyday life.”
Lavinia Modesti
The project explored the balance between preservation and transformation, enhancing the existing historical traces without confining the interiors to an exclusively historical dimension.
The aim was to create a lively home capable of accommodating the everyday life of a family with two daughters while expressing the complexity and many layers of the site.
The renovation involved every aspect of the apartment, from the reorganisation of its internal layout and the selection of finishes to the design of bespoke furniture and the choice of contemporary pieces, vintage furnishings, family objects and artworks. The rooms were conceived as a bright and carefully balanced setting for a rich palette, varied materials and decorative details, together creating a highly personal domestic landscape.
The new layout was primarily designed to bring the living spaces closer to the garden and establish greater fluidity between the different areas of the house. The living room, dining room and kitchen now open towards the exterior, while the parents’ suite has been organised as a more intimate and secluded space, complete with a private bathroom and walk-in wardrobe.
“With Casa GZ, we undertook a profound reorganisation of the spaces, with the aim of restoring the quality of a property that had lost some of its original residential character. The project brought light, continuity and new relationships back into the interiors, transforming the apartment into a contemporary and welcoming home capable of engaging with the history of its setting.”
Javier Deferrari
The internal garden is an integral part of the project. Conceived as a sheltered space for quiet moments and outdoor living, it is furnished with seating and plants and offers glimpses of the bell tower of Santa Croce. A burgundy pergola with a reed canopy marks the transition between inside and outside, turning the garden into a natural extension of the home.
Inside, the living room was conceived as a space for socialising and entertaining, as well as for working from home.
A large bespoke unit extends along one wall, accommodating books, objects and family memories, together with a fully concealed home-office station. The furniture therefore becomes both a functional and narrative device, organising the space while gathering together the traces of everyday life.
Colour becomes more prominent in the dining room and kitchen. The owner, who works in the fashion industry, followed the project with great care and curiosity, contributing to the definition of an intense and sophisticated palette.
Textures, surfaces and colours come together in an eclectic interior, where chevron parquet flooring is paired with rugs designed by Fortunato Depero and Gio Ponti, selected to characterise the living area and principal bedroom.
The family’s personal history also enters the project through its objects. Originally from the Veneto region, the owner brought several Murano glass chandeliers into the house, which are now displayed in the dining room, principal bedroom and bathrooms. Both decorative and deeply personal, these pieces introduce reflections, transparency and family memories into the interiors.
The principal bathroom is one of the project’s most distinctive spaces.
The floor design draws inspiration from the marble inlays of Florence Cathedral: a marble “carpet” guides the eye towards a sculptural lacquered-wood washbasin topped with red cement. The shower is concealed behind an ochre curtain, becoming an almost theatrical element, while yellow travertine flooring heightens the room’s material quality.
The principal bedroom is introduced by an ochrecoloured portal set within a bespoke panelled wardrobe. This element creates an architectural threshold between the shared areas and the more private part of the house, marking the entrance to the bedroom with a gesture that is both restrained and theatrical.
In the daughters’ bedroom, the restoration of the original fresco revealed decorative fragments belonging to the building’s long history. The room thus becomes the place where the past enters most visibly into everyday family life—not as a museum exhibit, but as a natural and domestic presence.
The furniture selection balances iconic vintage pieces, contemporary designs, bespoke elements and objects discovered at flea markets.
Chairs by Achille Castiglioni, vintage kitchen lights, family furnishings and decorative objects coexist in a harmonious composition that brings together different styles, periods and origins. Art also plays a significant role in shaping the identity of the house. The collection emerged from research into young artists from Livorno and Florentine designers and includes works by Duccio Maria Gambi.
These are complemented by objects and details connected to Florence’s manufacturing tradition, including Gucci wallpapers and Richard Ginori ceramics, further enriching the narrative of the interiors.
Casa GZ brings together rigour and freedom, memory and contemporary life. Shaped by historical traces, colour, bespoke furniture, artworks and meaningful objects, it is a home designed to inhabit one of Florence’s most authentic and layered neighbourhoods with lightness and awareness.
DEFERRARI+MODESTI
Created in 2010 in Florence, founded by Javier Deferrari and Lavinia Modesti. Over the years we have focused our research in Interior Design developing projects of different scales and types, each time creating a unique concept with its own distinct poetics. The studio develops projects for private residences, corporate spaces for companies, showrooms, stores, offices and hospitality, and collaborate with major institutions in designing permanent and temporary museum installations. They collaborate with both private clients and major institutions and companies including La Galleria degli Uffizi, Targetti Sankey, Toscana Resort Castelfalfi, Castello di Banfi, Marca Corona, Mirage, Museo Piaggio, Cruna.
Alongside the professional design activity, we flank the academic commitment. Since 2017 we have been collaborating with IED as Teachers and Coordinators of the Bachelor’s degree course in “Interior Design”.
Recent awards to the office:
In 2020 the studio is a finalist at the Dezeen Awards in the “Emerging Interior Designer of the Year” category. In 2021 the TH01 Targetti Hub is among the winners of the prestigious Iconic Awards promoted by the German Design Council. In 2021 the studio’s works have been exhibited inside the Italian Pavillion of “Resilient Communities” of the 17th Architecture Biennale, inside the section edited by Rebelarchitette and Alessandro Melis “Detoxing architecture from inequalities: a plural act”.
Facts & Credits
Project title House GZ | House with an interior garden
Typology Interior
Location Santa Croce, Florence, Italy
House area 100 sqm
Garden area 80 sqm
Status Completed, 2026
Architecture DEFERRARI+MODESTI by Javier Deferrari, Lavinia Modesti
Photography Studio Campo by Anna Positano and Gaia Cambiaggi
This project was submitted to Archisearch through the “Submit a Story” feature, where architects, designers, and creatives are invited to share their work for publication.