When the design curator Valentina Ciuffi and her husband, creative director Andrew Haug, needed more space after having their first child, they were hesitant to leave the Cita Studi neighborhood Ciuffi has called home for most of her fifteen years in Milan. For Ciuffi, a self-identified “researcher” who runs the multidisciplinary creative firm Studio Vedèt and co-founded the collectible design fair Alcova, it was hard to picture the apartment they now share together, located in Caiazzo, outside the city center, as a family home. But Haug, who made the final decision after Ciuffi’s initial round of house-hunting, believed in what they could make it. Together, they’ve created not just a home, but a long-lasting tribute to Milan’s spirit, their love of design, and the people who inspire them daily.
The couple brought on Maddalena Casadei, who designed their previous home together on Via Stoppani, to oversee the necessary renovations. Primarily a product designer, Casadei managed to bring an inventive eye to the home’s challenging floorplan and to find creative solutions where others might see limits. The apartment had an irregular, almost trapezoidal floor plan, with a long hallway, typical of Milanese homes from the 1920s and ’30s, that ended in an unexpected triangular-shaped room. It lacked proper guest rooms and, though it had two bathrooms, one was practically unusable. Still, Casadei felt that “the home didn’t need to be redone, but rather tailored for Andrew and Valentina. My role was to support their vision, accompanying them in creating a space that would truly be theirs.”