X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

This X-shaped house by architects Cadaval & Sola-Morales hangs over the edge of a hillside on the outskirts of Barcelona (+ slideshow).

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Aptly named X House, the two-storey residence is based on a simple rectilinear form but features four triangular recesses that create the X-shaped plan. One of these recesses allows the structure to avoid a nearby tree, while two others provide windows that avoid overlooking neighbouring houses and the fourth lengthens the glazed facade to offer a wider view of the surrounding landscape.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

“The form is not a priori, but an effort to give a unitary response that satisfies each of the questions that rose up in the design process,” explains Cadaval & Solà-Morales.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

The walls without glazing appear as solid, undecorated concrete and were set using a single-sided formwork. “[The house] accumulates in its skin the diverse and continuous knowledge acquired within the process of construction,” say the architects.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: photograph is by Iwan Baan

Residents enter the house on the top floor by following a staircase around the edge of the pine tree and locating a door that is two metres below street level, alongside a garage for parking two cars.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: photograph is by Iwan Baan

A bedroom, bathroom and study occupy two arms of the cross on this floor and overlook a double-height living room on the storey below.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: photograph is by Iwan Baan

Downstairs, the living room and kitchen wrap around the facade to offer views out across over the hillside.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

“X House uses form to qualify spaces of very different nature and provide them with an individual character, always incorporating landscape as a main actor,” add the architects.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Photography is by Sandra Pereznieto, apart from where otherwise stated.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Here’s some more information from Cadaval & Solà-Morales:


The Power of Form

The X House project aims to solve by the definition of a system, language, or even through a unique form, a number of inquiries that rise up when we read the specific given site: how to protect and give protagonism to an impressive pine, that is located on the top of the site, and that makes access and approximation to the house extremely complex from the street; how to avoid deciding between the views to the sea and those to the mountains, and allow both visions in opposite directions; how to neutralize through form the presence of the contiguous constructions, to build up a fake isolation that denies the neighbours; how to double the main views, permitting quality frontal views from the front and the rear of the house; how to resolve so many a priories with a simple movement that answers to all of the previous aims without prioritizing nor explicitly formulating a response to any of them.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: photograph is by Iwan Baan

The form, a unique form, is the result of a long process of search of individual answers to each of those challenges; thus, the form is not a priori, but an effort to give a unitary response that satisfies each of the questions that rose up in the design process. The X House is also a constructive exploration: a technique regularly used for the infrastructural construction such as bridges and tunnels, is here developed to meet the architectural scale, aiming to incorporate efficiency, and reduction of costs to the construction.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: photograph is by Iwan Baan

The use of a mixed technique based on the application of a high-density concrete allows projecting the material at a high pressure to a single-sided formwork, and to acquire high structural resistance in extremely short periods of time. Thus, it is possible to project continuous 6m high walls without the need to use a two-sided formwork (which would be the regular construction procedure). The house is therefore a living expression of the specific technique, and accumulates in its skin the diverse and continuous knowledge acquired within the process of construction.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

The house is located on the upper part of a hill in Cabrils, in the outskirts of Barcelona. The site, with remarkable views and an important slope, is accessed from a single street located at the top of the site. The location of the house within the site responds to the aim to minimize excavation and optimize, within possible, the use of the non-occupied land.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: photograph is by Iwan Baan

The access to the house is two meters depressed from the street, and the project searches to empathise through the use of blank walls the desire to be anchored in the site and to disappear from the street; the project clearly prioritizes the façades and views overseeing the valley.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: photograph is by Iwan Baan

The house has two floors. The top floor, beyond incorporating a parking and allowing the access to the house, is conceived as a private suite of the owners: main room, with dresser and washroom / toilet, and spacious studio. In the lower floor there is a clear distinction between the front and the rear of the house; the front part has a totally open and public nature, build up with a living area in a double high space next to a kitchen-dining room articulated around a significant marble table, 8m long.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: photograph is by Iwan Baan

The rear part of the lower floor holds the rooms and service areas, which through the patios are given direct and protected views to the valley, the sea and the mountain.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Mainly, the project of the X House uses form to qualify spaces of very different nature and provide them with an individual character, always incorporating landscape as a main actor. Beyond the effective spatial arrangement at the front of the house, the views are the protagonist in each space. And learning from Dan Graham’s reflections, the image of the sea is always present when observing the mountain, and the mountain appears as a reflection when looking at the sea: a perceptive quality that enriches the experience of the house.

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: photograph is by Iwan Baan

Name of the project: X House
Name of the Office: Cadaval & Solà-Morales
Project: Eduardo Cadaval & Clara Solà-Morales

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: photograph is by Iwan Baan

Collaborators: Bruno Pereira, Pamela Diaz De Leon, Daniela Tramontozzi, Manuel Tojal Building Engineering: Joaquin Pelaez
Structural Engineering: Carles Gelpi.
Construction Company: TOPCRET constructions

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Location: Cabrils, Barcelona, España
Area: 300sqm
Date: Project: 2009. Construction 2012

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: site plan

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: upper floor plan

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: lower floor plan

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: front elevation

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: side elevation

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: rear elevation

X House by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Above: side elevation

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Cadaval & Solà-Morales
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Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Travellers visting the Mexican town of Tepoztlan can spend a few nights, months or even years at this three-armed concrete guesthouse by architects Cadaval & Sola-Morales (+ slideshow).

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Cadaval & Sola-Morales designed the pavilion as the first in a series of new holiday homes in the town, which sits on the outskirts of Mexico City on the edge of the Tepoztlan mountain.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

The building has three concave elevations that shape the boundaries of two patios at the back and an egg-shaped swimming pool at the front.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Walls slide back across each elevation, opening the building’s central room out to the garden. ”The lounge is set to be a central communal space for leisure in nature,” explain the architects.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

This concept is emphasised by the presence of two trees growing up through the floor and roof, which the architects planned the structure around.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Rooms are contained at the three corners of the building, so that a living room is at one end, a children’s playroom is at another and a kitchen and two washrooms are in the third.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

There are no beds in the building, only hammocks suspended across the lounge.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

See more recent projects in Mexico, including a bone-like tower of concrete and a weekend house with a perforated facade.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Photography is by Sandra Pereznieto, apart from where otherwise stated.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Here’s a project description from Cadaval & Sola-Morales:


Tepoztlan Lounge

Tepoztlan, is a small town nestled between rocky cliffs located to the south of Mexico City, 50 kilometers away from the vibrant metropolis. With its well preserved historic center and wild countryside, Tepoztlan is a town of legends and deep cultural roots that has been appreciated by writers, poets, artists and musicians over many decades, turning it into their hometown or weekend retreat. Located in this incredible context and surrounded by an astonishing landscape, the Tepoztlan Lounge is the first building completed of a larger project that also includes a series of bungalows of different sizes and designs, which can be rented by years, months or days.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

The lounge is set to be a central communal space for leisure in nature, and is located in the perimeter of an incredible lawn; the idiosyncrasy of the project relies on enabling the experience of the carefully manicured lawn while promoting the experience of the wild nature existing in the boundaries of this central space. The project is a negotiation between interior and exterior, a construction of an in-between condition, an inhabitable threshold, which becomes the main space of the project; the limits between the open and the content space merge to produce a single architectural entity.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

The design establishes three separate living quarters designed in accordance to the 3 activities planned; each of them is a set space defined by its use, but also by a very clear and simple architectural container: the first holds an open bar with a kitchenette, together with a couple of restrooms and dressing rooms; the second is a play area for children that can also be used as a reading room when temperatures drop at night; and finally the largest container is the living area, an enclosed, tempered and comfortable space for conversation, TV, etcetera. But it is the desire to give continuity between these three separate areas where the project is empowered and becomes meaningful; a continuous space, in full contact with the nature but protected from its inclemency is set up not only to expand the enclosed uses, but also to allow new activities to arise.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

And it is through the definition of this central space, through the definition of its shape, that the contiguous courtyards are defined; those are as essential to the project as it is the built architecture, and allows constructing as a whole, single spatial experience. At the same time that the three built containers give continuity to the central space by mans of their use and space, the adjacent patios qualify it, while providing diversity and idiosyncrasy to open space. The design of the swimming pool is part of this same intervention, and responds to the desire to characterize the spaces; its formalization necessarily resonates the layout of the lounge, while incorporating to its nature the possibility of a multiplicity of ways of using water, and plunging on it.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

The building is located as a plinth valuing the views of the mountains. The building wants to be respectful to the existing context, and understands that the vegetation and life at open air are the real protagonist. Two impressive trees that are in place are incorporated within the layout of the lounge, as if they were part of the program itself. The Tepoztlan Lounge is constructed in concrete not just for being a inexpensive and labor intensive material in Mexico and to minimize its maintenance, but also to expose its structural simplicity and neutrality towards the astonishing nature.

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Above: photograph is by Diego Berruecos

Name of the project: Tepoztlán Lounge.
Name of the Office: Cadaval & Solà-Morales.
Project: Eduardo Cadaval & Clara Solà-Morales.
Collaborators: Eugenio Eraña Lagos, Tomas Clara, Manuel Tojal.
Structural Engineering: Ricardo Camacho de la fuente.
Location: Tepoztlán, Morelos, México.
Área: 250sqm.
Date: Project: 2009. Construction 2012

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Above: site plan – click above for larger image

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Above: floor plan – click above for larger image

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Above: front elevation – click above for larger image

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Above: east elevation – click above for larger image

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Above: rear elevation – click above for larger image

Tepoztlan Lounge by Cadaval & Sola-Morales

Above: west elevation – click above for larger image

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Cadaval & Sola-Morales
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