Federica Gosio’s Shell-Shaped Villa Frames Sardinia’s Coast

By Grace Kim

Federica Gosio’s shell-shaped villa overlooks the bay of Porto Rafael on Sardinia’s northern coast, an area known for its remote location and scenic beauty. Gosio, who leads the firm bearing her name and is a cofounder of Studio MILO, describes the house as “an arch over the sea.”

There is no single guiding principle in Gosio’s design. She says the home can adapt to its surroundings, the sea and nature. The villa springs from the rugged land and pays homage to that setting through its pointed arches, organic forms and natural materials.

Alessandra Radaelli, the owner, worked with Gosio on an organic, sculptural retreat. Radaelli said: “We decided to honor the design legacy of Rafael Neville,” referring to Porto Rafael’s founder. Her stated priority was a harmonious approach in which architecture blends with the landscape.

Gosio says the minimalist spaces embrace sunlight, wind and island life’s slow rhythm. She describes the project as a contemporary interpretation of the Mediterranean, balancing memory, nature and design. Form, openings and materials make the house read as part of Porto Rafael rather than as an isolated villa.

What does the shell shape change for visitors?

It changes how they encounter the house. Pointed arches organize its doors and hallways, while softened volumes let the whitewashed building follow the land’s contours. Gosio and her team removed straight lines to create its rounded silhouette.

The form also looks shaped by Sardinia’s Mistral, a powerful winter wind that sweeps across the island and reshapes its landscape. Gosio’s team deliberately softened the edges and smoothed the house’s connected volumes, turning an effect of weather into an architectural analogue.

According to Gosio’s account of the approach, soft masses, textured surfaces and carefully placed rocks lead toward a hand-brushed iron arched entrance door. Daniele Mingardo custom-designed that door. The route crosses acres of lush Mediterranean vegetation and descends toward the sea through green terraces and social spaces.

Those social spaces include a panoramic pool and an outdoor kitchen. Gosio’s plan extends the villa’s living areas into the terrain and turns the descent into a transition between shelter and coast. The shell form therefore works less as nautical decoration than as a device for organizing movement, climate and view.

The palette carries the same logic. Gosio says white walls, Orosei marble floors and organically shaped furnishings create a measured, well-proportioned composition based on the neutral and warm tones of local soil. The marble has a bush-hammered finish (a dimpled, light-catching texture) and broken edges.

Orosei stone, which comes from Sardinia’s coast, also forms sinks indoors and outdoors. Its repetition links floors, fixtures and geology. Vintage rattan pieces, a woven plant-fiber material, add texture, while sculptural creations by Pretziada, a creative design practice based in Sardinia, and its artisans complete the rooms.

Gosio treats every element as part of one composition. Organic furnishings extend the architecture’s curved vocabulary, while the muted palette keeps the rooms connected to the soil outside. Materials carry the adaptation idea into the house: floors, basins and furnishings share the villa’s irregular geometry rather than reading as separate additions.

Radaelli and Gosio place the changing site ahead of a fixed shell image. Radaelli wanted architecture to merge with landscape; Gosio wanted strength and grace within a larger context. Neither priority depends on reproducing the seashell resemblance literally.

For Radaelli and Gosio, the forward test is practical: the arches, local stone and softened volumes must continue to frame island life without reducing the landscape to a backdrop. Their stated aims make the house’s identity environmental rather than a copied historical style.