Hasta La Ideas

Gaps between the three brick boxes of this house near Barcelona by local firm H Arquitectes can be transformed from enclosed rooms into covered patios by folding back glass doors at both ends (+ slideshow).

Located in the town of Sant Cugat near Barcelona, the house was designed by H Arquitectes for a couple with a large art collection, who wanted plenty of wall space and a strong connection between indoors and outdoors.

“One of the main goals was to achieve a close and essential relationship between the house and the garden in such a way that they both became the extension of each other,” the architects explained.

Instead of inserting large windows into the facade to connect the house’s interior with the garden, the architects enclosed the main living room and entrance hallway with full-height wooden doors that can be folded to one side to open these spaces up to the garden.

The entrance hall is simply furnished with a bureau by the doorway and leads through to a long outdoor table, while sofas and armchairs in the other interstitial space create a comfortable living area which the architects said acts as “a green house during winter and a fresh porch in summer.”

Both of the gaps between the boxes act as routes from the front of the house to the back and feature polished concrete floors that extend into the garden on one side and a gravel pathway on the other.

Load-bearing brick walls give the exterior of the three volumes a uniform appearance. In the living room and hallway the red brick becomes the surface of the interior walls, while in the other rooms the masonry has been whitewashed.

Windows are carefully positioned to make the most of the garden views while maintaining privacy where required, and feature traditional external roller blinds to protect the interior from the sun.

The box at the eastern end of the site houses three children’s bedrooms on the first floor and a playroom on the ground floor.

The single storey central box contains a large kitchen, while the third box provides the parents with a bedroom on the ground floor and a studio space above.

Concrete slabs sheltering the spaces between the brick volumes are left with a raw finish, creating a textured ceiling that continues throughout the ground floor rooms.

Brick is also used to clad the edges of a small swimming pool in the western corner of the plot.

Photography is by Adrià Goula.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

House 1101

Not so many jobs begin like this one, with an owners’ list of wishes and hopes for their new home. A list much closer to the principles and values architects usually work with, often secretly, than the ordinary expectations of those couples facing this unknown challenge. Lists always full of good intentions but often incomplete. This was the start, loaded with responsibility, yet an excellent start.

The plot, located in a residential area of Sant Cugat, near Barcelona, had enough good attributes to become the project main line. One of the main goals was to achieve a close and essential relationship between the house and the garden in such a way that they both became the extension of each other. All that, without falling into the unavoidable, often out of proportion, and so recurrent large glazed panels: they wanted walls, and we also did. A house with walls in a garden for an art collectors couple.

For those reasons, from the right beginning, the proposal searches the balance between placing the maximum number of rooms on the ground floor yet keeping the garden free from masonry work volumes. This idea is developed through a volumetric composition shaped in three boxes spread throughout the garden, almost aligned and located in the plot northern side creating a wide outer zone facing south. The first box, to the east, houses the children’s area with three single bedrooms upstairs and a playroom on the ground floor. The second one, in the centre, accommodates the main room: the kitchen, a nearly 30 square metre and 4 metre high room dominated by a large fireplace. The third box, to the west, contains the parents’ zone, with the bedroom at the garden level and a high ceiling studio on the first floor.

The spaces created between the three boxes are covered sheltering two different environments, open to the garden in north-south direction and can be closed with big folding windows. These spaces offer a very different atmosphere, much more related to the garden area than to the house. The first of these interstitial ambiences, between the children’s area and the kitchen, serves as entrance hall. The second one, bigger, between the parents’ zone and the kitchen, is the living room but not a conventional one: a green house during winter and a fresh porch in summer.

The residence is all circled by the garden, the most part of it facing south. The corner (west), sharp-shaped, gathers the kitchen garden and a pond to bath in. In the north, the distance between the green fence and the house varies between 5 and 6 metres and increases up to 9 metres at the uncovered car parking place. This space is connected through a 3 metres wide path, parallel to the east fence, with the main southern garden. The interstitial spaces of the house (entrance hall and living room) become connecting porches between the front and back gardens.

About volumes, the house is composed of three brick masonry cubes of different heights set parallel to the back street. Although having several dimension windows that depend on their function, the cubes are predominantly massive. Besides, the interstitial areas between cubes, covered by a concrete slab and framed by folding wooden glass doors, are essentially ethereal. Actually, the space becomes an open porch when windows are folded back.

According to its materiality, the house is built on double face brick load-bearing walls, using red masonry for the outer face while white painted inside; wooden window and door frames with traditional outer roller blinds as sunscreen when required. The house is conditioned with a geothermal heat pump and an under floor heating system that slightly refreshes the house during summer, avoiding an air conditioned system to dehumidify.

Site: Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona.
Architect: HARQUITECTES (David Lorente, Josep Ricart, Xavier Ros, Roger Tudó)
Collaborators: Blai Cabrero Bosch, architect (HARQUITECTES); Carla Piñol Moreno, quantity surveyor (HARQUITECTES); Iñaki González de Mendiguchia Garmendia, quantity surveyor; DSM arquitectes (structural engineer); Àbac enginyers (insallations); Eliseu Guillamón / Pere Cabassa (landscape)
Project year: 2011-2013
Constructed surface: 323m2

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that double as sheltered patios appeared first on Dezeen.

Spanish firm Nook Architects has renovated a Barcelona apartment by adding patterned floor tiles plus a combined step and window seat leading out onto the terrace (+ slideshow).

The Casa Sal apartment in the Poble Sec district of the city is only three metres wide and 19 metres long.

Nook Architects covered the kitchen, bathroom and study with patterned ceramics to divide up the space visually. They then used wooden flooring for a softer look and feel in the rest of the home.

The kitchen acts as the hub of the apartment by linking the living room and the bedroom areas. Nook said they placed extra emphasis on the kitchen.

“For our client, the most important part was the kitchen which had to be the heart of the home; functional, resistant, lively, and very much on the lead in regards to the rest of the room.”

The brightly tiled kitchen leads on to the living room and a slightly raised terrace. Before work started the terrace was in poor condition and could only be accessed through a narrow, opaque door.

To make it feel more connected to the rest of the home, Nook fitted a window seat that doubles as a step with storage space underneath. By using the same material for the top of the bench and floor of the terrace they managed to integrate the terrace with the rest of the apartment. The sliding window doors also allow far more natural light into the room.

Like the kitchen and living room, the client’s bedroom is separated from the study by using floor tiles. Again, Nook used the eye-catching tiles to divide up the relatively small space.

It is becoming increasingly popular to use encaustic floor tiles in Barcelona, with many architects uncovering original flooring from the 1960s. In this case, with no original tiles to unearth, Nook’s client chose the tiles herself – a floral theme for the study, a checkerboard tile for the bathroom and geometrical patterns for the kitchen.

Photography is by nieve.

Here’s a project description from Nook Architects:

CASA SAL, Apartment in Poble Sec, Barcelona

For nook there are two different types of projects from the client’s point of view: that of an owner who will live on the dwelling, and those focused for an unknown user (for example, a rental apartment). On commissions for the first example, we try get to know the client’s day to day customs and habits as thoroughly as possible- anything that could have an effect on their way of life. This was the case of CASA SAL, where the refurbishment of a dwelling was shaped around personality of its owner.

On the other hand, we had to face de difficulties of the original geometry, a very compartmentalised rectangle, only 3 metres wide, and 19 metres long. On one of its ends lay a terrace in very poor conditions, elevated in regards to the dwellings floor level, which could only be accessed through a narrow, opaque door.

These were the premises we worked around in order to solve the architectural problems of the property and the functional requirements of our client. From the start, it involved teamwork, between the architects and the client.

For the client, the most important part was the kitchen, which had to be the heart of the home; functional, resistant, lively, and very much on the lead in regards to the rest of the room. The kitchen therefore articulates the rest of the spaces: on one side there’s the living room with Access to the terrace, and on the other the most private areas, her bedroom and study, a bathroom and a guest room.

To counter the sensation of the narrow proportions of the dwelling, we treated the pavement with fringes of different types of very eye-catching finishes, placing more resistant materials in the kitchen, bathroom, and study, and combining them with Wood for a softer look and feel on the rest of the home. Our client participated by choosing the different tiles used: a hydraulic mosaic for the kitchen with geometrical shapes, a floral theme for the study, and a checker board for the bathroom.

For the terrace, we had a double objective: to solve the deficient connection between it and the living room and to transform into source of natural light, giving it a purpose all year long. This is why we decided to open a large hole on the facade and placed a seating bench that doubles as a stair and storage area with bookcases and drawers. The same pavement was used to finish the terrace on the outside, and the bench on the inside, making the terrace part of the living room itself.

We understood from the beginning that even though our intervention was over, the client’s intervention had only begun. She now has a starting point based on a very familiar architecture to her past, her tastes, and way of live, which will evolve naturally and alongside herself.

Architects: nook architects
Location: Barcelona, España
Year: 2013

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window seat to Barcelona apartment renovation appeared first on Dezeen.

One pivoting door sits within another to create a rusted steel entrance that can be big or small at this combined house and photography studio in Spain by American firm Olson Kundig Architects (+ slideshow).

Tom Kundig of Seattle-based Olson Kundig Architects designed Studio Sitges as the home and workplace of a photographer and his family in the coastal town of Sitges, north-eastern Spain.

Eschewing the stuccoed walls and tiled rooftops of the local Tuscan houses, Kundig opted for an industrial material palette that includes pre-weathered Corten steel and raw concrete, some of which was cast against timber formwork to create grainy textures.

The pivoting entrances form part of a large section of Corten steel, which curves around the top of the facade to reveal a row of clerestory windows that are sheltered beneath overhanging eaves.

Other features include a glass lift that ascends between all of the floors and a rooftop study offering views out over the Mediterranean Sea.

The building contains two double-height photography studios, both set below ground level. A ramped entrance allows cars and other large pieces of equipment to be driven straight into the spaces, while a mezzanine balcony with a glass floor offers views into the studios from the level above.

A glass lift ascends to living spaces on the two storeys above. On the ground floor, living and dining spaces can be opened out to the garden using more pivoting doors – this time made on glass – and furniture includes restored teak tables and leather seating.

A master bedroom is housed within a cantilevered block that extends out over a patio in the garden. A bridge connects it with three smaller bedrooms that open out to a terrace on the roof.

Photography is by Nikolas Koenig.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Studio Sitges

Studio Sitges is a live/work space for a photographer and his family. Located three blocks from the Mediterranean Sea, the building captures the casual energy of this cosmopolitan beach town thirty minutes from Barcelona.

The house is zoned vertically, with two large below-grade photography studios anchoring the building, a main floor for entertaining both large and small groups, and private areas above. A glass elevator moves between floors and culminates in an intimate rooftop atelier. Kundig describes the whole house as a studio – a space in which things can happen.

A custom-designed wall and gate of rough concrete and weathered steel pushes the boundaries of the design out to the street. The gate rolls away to reveal a garage and a steeply sloping driveway leading down to the studios. Large panels of Corten steel arch from the ground over the facade to form part of the roof; the entrance to the house is via a tall steel pivot door, inset with a pilot door.

The underground, double-height photography studios are strikingly raw. In both, cycloramas enable the illusion that the studio floor stretches into infinity. Cars and large pieces of equipment can drive directly into the space. Support areas include a glass-floored viewing area on a mezzanine overlooking the studios, as well as separate dressing, makeup, and spa areas. The studios are wired so that in-progress shoots can be viewed around the world.

The design of the ground floor takes advantage of the mild climate, using sliding and pivot doors to maximise indoor/outdoor living. On the second floor, an interior bridge spans the space and connects the master suite with the other bedrooms. The master suite cantilevers over a dining terrace, while a guest suite opens onto a roof deck and planted roof overlooking the lap pool.

Throughout the house, low-maintenance materials such as Corten, concrete (board formed and cast in place), and mild steel give the home a handcrafted feel. At the top of the house, an atelier with indoor and outdoor space offers the home’s only view of the sea. At night, the atelier combines with the glass-topped elevator to appear like a beacon when lit.

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photography studio by Olson Kundig appeared first on Dezeen.

A rooftop swimming pool with a glass floor cantilevers out beside the entrance to this house in Marbella, Spain, by Dutch office Wiel Arets Architects (+ slideshow).

Named Jellyfish House, the three-storey concrete residence was designed by Wiel Arets Architects with a rooftop terrace and swimming pool to allow residents to swim and sunbathe with a view of the Mediterranean sea over neighbouring houses.

The swimming pool projects out across a semi-enclosed terrace beside the house’s main ground-floor entrance, projecting ripples of light onto the ground below.

The rear wall of the pool also features a large interior window, allowing residents in the first-floor kitchen to look out at friends and family taking a swim.

“The searing Spanish sun constantly filters through the pool’s glass wall and floor, creating ripples of iridescent turquoise reflections throughout the entire house,” explained the design team.

Another indoor window creates a view through from the kitchen to a living room below the pool, where glass walls slide back to open the space out to the elements.

Staircases are also exposed to the weather and are divided into “fast” and “slow” routes, just like V House completed by the same architect last year.

The gently inclined slow route spans the length the house, connecting all three floors with the roof terrace, while the adjacent fast stair offers direct access from the exterior to the roof.

Five bedrooms are shared out between the ground and first floor of the building. On the ground floor, two single bedrooms share a central en suite bathroom, while a master bedroom sits beyond.

Two guest bedrooms can be found on the partially submerged basement level, which emerges from the ground at the south-eastern end of the site to offer a secluded extra terrace.

“Taking full advantage of the ever-present Spanish sun, the Jellyfish House is an avant-garde expression of luxurious living,” said the designers. “As most of its facades can be opened and as its staircases are mainly outdoor, the house’s ever shifting boundaries between inside and outside are curiously blurred.”

Other unusual details include a service elevator that allows food and drink to be sent up from the kitchen to the roof, televisions and audio devices that are recessed into the walls, and a first-floor sauna and steam room.

Photography is by Jan Bitter.

Here is some information from the architects:

Jellyfish House

Located in Marbella, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, the Jellyfish House’s neighbouring buildings block its view onto the nearby sea. Appropriately, it was chosen to cantilever the house’s pool from its roof, so that the beach and sea can always be seen while sunbathing or swimming.

The house is organised around two paths of circulation: a ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ set of stairs, which intertwine and traverse the house’s four levels of living. The ‘fast’ stair leads from the exterior directly to the roof; it is enclosed in glass, which physically separates it from the house’s interior, yet it is simultaneously open to the exterior elements, so that sand is not brought into the house when returning from the beach. The ‘slow’ stair – whose long treads and short risers lend it its name – spans the entire length of the house, from ground floor main-entry to roof; it is indoors yet also open to the exterior elements, further amplifying the house’s capacity for ‘interiority’.

The house’s rooftop pool is cantilevered 9 m southwest – toward the Sierra Blanca mountain range in the distance – and weighs nearly 60,000 kg. Equipped with an infinity-edge, its water merges with the sea in the distance. This pool has a glass-bottom floor and a panoramic window at its interior facing edge, both of which are 6 cm thick; the latter allows those in the kitchen to voyeuristically view those swimming, while a third window affords those in the kitchen a glimpse of the living room, whose terrace extends under the cantilevered pool.

The searing Spanish sun constantly filters through the pool’s glass wall and floor, creating ripples of iridescent turquoise reflections throughout the entire house. As such, the pool can be seen and experienced from nearly all areas of the house. Integrated within the pool is an underwater bench, which traces its length and also integrates a pool cover, so that it is out of sight when the pool is in use.

Five bedrooms are located throughout the house, with two guest bedrooms situated on the basement level that face outward and onto an extensive private terrace for the exclusive use of guests. As the ‘slow’ stair leads from the main entry to the guest bedrooms below, this area of the house is able to function as a separate entity.

The kitchen is strung along the southern facade of the house’s first floor, with all secondary appliances built into an adjacent and perpendicular hallway. The first floor is also the location of the sauna and steam bath. A small service elevator also allows, for instance, food and drink to be brought from the kitchen, or any other floor, up to the rooftop pool and terrace. This roof terrace features an oversized and custom-designed concrete table with an adjoining bench, which is contiguous to an angular chair for reclining while sunbathing.

The house’s structure is composed of poured in place white-concrete, supported by one column at the right-rear edge of its pool, and several smaller columns near the rear-dining terrace. All non-concrete walls were constructed with glazing, which allows sunlight to permeate the house. Multiple bedroom closets, whose obverse faces the ground floor hallway, are finished in translucent glazing to compound this sunlight diffusing strategy. Oversized and accordion-like folding panels of translucent glazing adjoin each dining or entertaining space, which, when opened, essentially expands the house’s numerous areas of living by nearly doubling their size.

All of the house’s audio-video equipment – such as its countless Bose speakers – are recessed into its ceilings and walls, which allows them to disappear within their context little noticed. Lighting illuminates all corridors and staircases, as well as underwater within the pool, ensuring the rippling effects of its reflections that shimmer through its glass floor and wall can also be experienced throughout the house at night.

Taking full advantage of the ever-present Spanish sun, the Jellyfish House is an avant-garde expression of luxurious living; as most of its facades can be opened, and as its staircases are mainly outdoor, the house’s ever shifting boundaries between inside and outside are curiously blurred.

Location: Los Monteros, 29600 Marbella, Spain
Program: Housing
Size: 650 m2
Date of design: 1998-2001
Date of completion: Winter 2013
Project team: Wiel Arets, Bettina Kraus, Lars Dreessen, Dennis Villanueva, Carlos Ballesteros
Collaborators: Paul Draaijer, William Fung, Johannes Kappler
Client: Private
Consultants: West 8, ABT BV, Cauberg-Huygen Raadgevende Ingenieurs BV, Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos S.L.

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swimming pool with a glazed underside appeared first on Dezeen.

A house modelled on the form of an explosion by Portuguese artist and architect Didier Faustino looks set to become the next completed residence in the series of Spanish dream houses for French developer Christian Bourdais.

Casa Faustino is scheduled to be the next project to begin construction in Spain’s Matarraña region as part of the series of Solo Houses, an initiative to construct 12 architect-designed holiday homes that are free from any constraints besides budget.

Didier Faustino and his architecture studio Mésarchitectures have designed a residence made up of rectilinear volumes that project outward in different directions to create a variety of apertures, framing views of the surrounding landscape and sky.

Floors inside the structure will be arranged as staggered platforms, which the design team hopes will encourage residents to “experience space in new ways, from infinitely large to infinitely small”.

“Similarly to the centre of the ‘Big Bang’ the house appears to draw in as well as reflect the light at its core,” said the designers. “The floors cause the body to feel weightless due to a lack of traditional spatial references.”

A swimming pool will be located on the lowest level of the building and will extend out beyond the walls.

So far only one house has been completed in the Solo Houses series – the symmetrical concrete Casa Pezo by Chilean studio Pezo Von Ellrichshausen. A total of 12 are proposed and include designs by Sou Fujimoto, Johnston Marklee and Takei Nabeshima.

Here are a few more details from Mésarchitectures:

Casa Faustino

At the Centre of Infinity nestling in the telluric mountain scenery, this ultimate shelter lies before us like the promise of a new world. Protecting from the natural elements but inspired by the surrounding nature, this carapace capaciously opens out to frame the many perspectives of the landscape resulting in a better understanding of its diverse nature.

Similarly to the centre of the “Big Bang” the house appears to draw in as well as reflect the light at its core. The floors cause the body to feel weightless due to a lack of traditional spatial references (top and bottom, right and left).

As if from elsewhere, the house invites its occupants to experience space in new ways, from infinitely large to infinitely small.

Location: Poligono 12, parcella N°141, Cretas, Matarraña, Espagne
Area: 3,48 Hectares
Architects: Didier Fuiza Faustino & Bureau des Mésarchitectures
Collaborators: Tony Matias, Pascal Mazoyer, Maÿlis Puyfaucher.

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to be next in series of dream houses appeared first on Dezeen.