Unità residenziale Ovest, Multifamily residential in Ivrea, Italy

Unità residenziale Ovest, known as Talponia, is a two-storey residential building on an artificial slope at the edge of Villa Casana park in Ivrea. Its semicircular plan, about 70 metres in radius and roughly 300 metres long, is almost entirely buried except for a continuous glazed facade facing an inner courtyard with a planted hill. The paved roof, reached from the street, serves as a terrace, and the facade echoes Bath's Royal Crescent.

Olivetti commissioned the project from architects Roberto Gabetti and Aimaro Oreglia d'Isola in 1968, to house employees temporarily staying in Ivrea for work at the company headquarters. The building stands at the edge of the Villa Casana park and, like Olivetti's New Office Building, marks Ivrea's shift from an industrial to a service city in the 1970s and 1980s. It is now divided into 81 individual properties.

The nickname Talponia refers to the mole, an animal that lives underground: the building is almost entirely buried, with only the glass facade facing the inner courtyard exposed. The paved roof works as a terrace-piazza reached directly from the street, overlooking the planted hill in the courtyard below. The covered internal street, marked outside by a row of plexiglas domes, serves all the flats.

The paved roof is reached directly from the street and works as a terrace over the inner courtyard, which holds a planted hill. From outside, the covered internal street can be located by the row of plexiglass domes along the roof. The building lies at the edge of the Villa Casana park and is about 300 metres long.

The covered internal street that serves all 85 flats can be picked out from outside by the row of plexiglas domes on the paved roof. That roof works as a terrace-piazza above the planted inner courtyard, and the glazed facade below echoes the Royal Crescent in Bath.