A photographer's studio drawn as one top-lit volume, with nothing to block the north light.
Luca Marlowe shoots still life and furniture. He needed even, shadowless daylight across a large floor, plus a quiet office he could close off from it.
The studio is a single concrete room under a saw-tooth roof. Every rooflight faces north, so the light holds steady from morning to dusk.
Client
Luca Marlowe
Location
Milan, Italy
Year
2023
Scope
New-build studio
Area
320 m²
Status
Completed
Collaborators
Studio Ferri, structure
Photography
Studio Void
THE SITE
Turning an industrial yard toward the sky.
The site is a former print works in a courtyard of taller buildings. Side windows would only have looked at walls, so all the light comes from above.
We kept the old yard wall as the street face. Behind it the new roof rises in four even teeth.
“The room is the lighting rig. Most days I don't switch anything on.”
Luca Marlowe — Client
Three materials chosen to stay out of the photograph.
Stone
Polished concrete floor
Neutral and reflective. It throws light up under the objects being shot.
Plaster
Fine white lime
Walls that read as a soft, even backdrop on camera.
Glass
Low-iron rooflights
No green cast, so colour stays true from frame to frame.
PROCESS
Sketch to site.
01
Sketch
Daylight readings across a full year.
02
Plan
A single saw-tooth section, repeated four times.
03
Render
Light modelled hour by hour for every season.
04
Built
Concrete poured in one continuous day.