Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto has designed a house encased in a lattice of giant sticks as part of a series of dream houses proposed for Spain’s Matarraña region (+ slideshow).
Sou Fujimoto is one of 12 architects that has been commissioned by French developer Christian Bourdais to create a holiday home for the Solo Houses series, and was given carte blanche to come up with any concept within a set budget.
Named Geometric Forest, the proposed house will comprise a two-storey stone and glass volume, enveloped on all sides by a complex framework of interwoven logs.
Residents will be able to clamber between floors by using the lattice as a climbing frame, but will also be able to use the structure as shelves for displaying plants and other items.
According to the architect, it will be “simultaneously enclosed and protected, as well as completely open”, allowing wind and sunlight to filter through its walls.
These ideas derive from the architect’s concept of “primitive futures”, which looks at the origins of architecture and borrows forms from humble caves and animals’ nests.
Simply put, this house is like a geometric forest.
Combining untreated wood in its natural form in an irregular lattice to create a loose boundary. Natural breeze flows through the gaps, and strong summer sun is shielded by this loose lattice structure; between nature and artificiality. A place both loosely protected and at the same time, thoroughly open.
One is able to physically climb through this lattice, to the upper part of the structure is a space like a sky-terrace where one can find a place of refuge. Move through the space like climbing a tree.
The gaps, or spaces between the lattice structure can be used as shelves, or a place for your favourite pot-plant. A place to live, can be re-written as a place filled with opportunities or cues where one can engage, it is also a place to harness and invite elements such as wind and sun to orchestrate a pleasant space.
This forest of lattice structure will be place for living which is new yet primitive.
This symmetrical concrete house by Chilean studio Pezo Von Ellrichshausen is the first in a series of 12 holiday homes underway in the Spanish canton of Matarraña and will be followed by others designed by Sou Fujimoto, Didier Faustino and more (+ slideshow).
Casa Pezo is the first and so far only completed residence in the Solo Houses series – a project commissioned by French developer Christian Bourdais that invited a host of international architects to design a dream house with no constraints besides budget.
Architects Maurizio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen of Pezo Von Ellrichshausen based their house on the principles of “symmetry and homothety”, creating an evenly proportioned building that centres around a courtyard and swimming pool.
The main living spaces of the house are raised two storeys above the ground so that they float over the landscape. They’re supported by a chunky central column, which accommodates the building’s entrance and contains the swimming pool.
“Occupants feel a floating sensation as they hang over a podium that only sustains the centre of the building,” explained the design team.
To maintain the unyielding symmetry, the building has two identical entrances that are both accessed from a single staircase.
Once inside, residents use a spiral staircase to walk up to the house’s main floor, where a living room, dining room and pair of bedrooms are neatly positioned around the edges of the courtyard.
All four rooms have floor-to-ceiling glazing, which slides back to allow each one to be transformed into a terrace, while four balconies form the square corners of the plan.
The architects looked at the design of traditional Mediterranean courtyard residences when developing the layout and proportions of the plan. “The size of the swimming pool, a quarter of the patio, sets the standard for each the modules of the peripheral ring,” they said.
The sides of the pool and courtyard are lined with white ceramic tiles to provide a counterpoint to the bare concrete visible everywhere else around the building.
Here’s more information from Pezo Von Ellrichshausen:
Casa Pezo – the first of the solo houses collection
Chilean agency Pezo Von Ellrichshausen has completed Casa Pezo – Solo Houses’ first initiative of unique property development in Europe. The house is a belvedere situated in the breathtaking natural site Matarraña, two hours south of Barcelona. It overlooks the Natural Park of Puertos de Beceite.
This house is the first house completed by Solo Houses. Its project comprises building a dozen homes in the region, each designed by some of the most avant-garde international architects. Christian Bourdais, founder of Solo Houses, gives architects few restrictions when designing their interpretation of a second home. He believes that this specific type of habitat offers occupants and architects a freedom from preconceived notions of housing and an aperture to unique architectural design.
Maurizio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen designed a house, which dominates the landscape. A platform separates the structure from the mainland. Occupants feel a floating sensation as they hang over a podium that only sustains the centre of the building.
Casa Pezo is made of concrete. Its design is governed by symmetry and homothety. It plays with verticality and horizontality. Balance and rhythm begin at the entrance and is sustained throughout. Two sets of stairs and doors create a triangle on either side of a corner.
It is only once you have reached the upper floor that it becomes clear that the monolith flanking the podium is a swimming pool. Covered with ceramic tiling, the pool occupies the central part of a patio. It is a reference to Mediterranean architecture where a balance of warmth and shade is essential.
Section one
The size of the swimming pool, a quarter of the patio, sets the standard for each the modules of the peripheral ring. Beyond a rigorous geometric distribution, Casa Pezo is simple and minimal. A dining room, a living room and two bedrooms are filled with little furniture, mostly designed by the architects themselves. Large windows open completely to the outside. All indoor spaces have the possibility of becoming outdoor terraces.
Section two
The estate covers just under fifty hectares. Ten other houses, all designed by renowned architects, are planned. Each unique structure will be surrounded by 3 to 4 hectares of nature. This allows each home to fully integrate into an expanse landscape.
North elevation
Architecture de Collection, the first agency specialising in the sale of outstanding 20th and 21st century architecture, markets the homes. Architects for the other homes include Sou Fujimoto, designer of the current Serpentine Gallery pavilion, Didier Faustino, Office KGDVS, Johnston Marklee, MOS Office, Studio Mumbai, or TNA Takei Nabeshima. For the price of a simple 100m2 apartment in a city, Solo Houses offers property with a creative concept.
South elevation
Christian Bourdais believes in the principle of collecting original and unique designs. The business model is patterned following the Case Study House Program. A project that collected the most talented architects of 1950s to 1970s, in order to explore the concept of a modern and affordable vacation spot in California. Half a century later, each of these productions – 36 projects, not all of which have been constructed – has become a work of art. Amateur architecture collectors strive to own them. Solo Houses is a project of today. It is a reflection on our modern way of life. It is also based on the timeless art of living.
The rooms of this wooden house in a forest near Madrid by local architects FRPO branch off in different directions to slot into gaps between the trees (+ slideshow).
FRPO was asked to design a family home that was sensitive to its natural environs and chose to distribute the rooms across the site in a series of interconnected boxes.
“The powerful presence of the trees and the wish to have a house integrated in the woods led to a disaggregated solution,” said the architects.
Several possibilities for the position of the various boxes were explored before the architects settled on the most suitable solution.
The boxes nestle beneath the branches of the trees, which also occupy spaces between the numerous angled external walls.
The building is constructed from cross-laminated wood panels that remove the need for destructive foundations and provide excellent thermal insulation.
FRPO explained that the choice of wood allowed them to create a structure that is “insulating, continuous, lightweight, precise and extremely thin,” and described it as “wood in the woods.”
The wooden theme continues inside the building, where painted timber panelling covers the walls, and a table with a thick wooden top occupies the dining room.
From an entrance at the centre of the plan, corridors branch off towards the master bedroom and two rooms for the family’s children at one end of the house, and a kitchen, dining area and living room at the other end.
A single taller box contains a study space that is accessed by a spiralling staircase.
Photography is by FRPO, Miguel de Guzmán.
Here are some more details from the architects:
MO House by FRPO
Systematic freedom
In 2010 we received a commission to design a single-family house in a forest in the outskirts of Madrid. Although the programmatic requirements were conventional, the site would demand a complex geometry. The powerful presence of the trees and the wish to have a house integrated in the woods led to a disaggregated solution. The program was transferred in a very direct and natural way to a number of simple rectangular pieces. The different topological relations between the pieces determined a series of useful solutions, 24 in the end. The optimal version was selected and the plan of the MO House was this way defined.
The MO House project belongs to a family of projects developed in the office beginning in 2005. These projects explore the possibilities of generating architectural complexity out of the combination of simple elements. Throughout this process of projects, conditioned by a large number of specifications settled by the clients, we have been forced to systematize every design decision in order to simplify the process to its full capacity. The results produce a nice surprise: the combination of a number of extremely simple spaces offer an extremely rich spatial experience. We have found a powerful tool to work with. We can use this system in very different situations. Some very simple basic rules and a series of pieces with adequate proportions will result in an endless range of solutions.
Wood in the woods
The final arrangement of the MO House plan opened two technical issues that put the solution into question: the high variety of angles in the joints between pieces and a penalized shape factor that would result in a negative impact on the energetic performance of the house (an elevated façade-volume ratio). In addition to that, another key issue aroused: proximity of trees required a little aggressive foundation system.
The technical solution adopted in a first approach – steel skeleton with concrete slabs – did not seem viable. We needed a lighter system that could be assembled in a more accurate way. It had to be simple – like the plan – and thermally favourable. On a visit to his studio, a friend showed us a cross-laminated wood panel by KLH. The product met all the requirements: a solid structural material with high insulating performance and CNC manufactured at their Austrian factory. The house would be solid wood. Wood in the woods. 72 mm thick walls. Slabs from 95 to 182 mm.
The total weight of the structure would not reach one third of a conventional system. The foundations could therefore be made of galvanized steel micropiles only 2 meters long. The panels would be manufactured by numerical control cutting, ensuring accuracy at all angles. The structure would be insulating, continuous, lightweight, precise and extremely thin. The floor of the house could be a direct transposition of the work scheme. The installation process would be fast and accurate.
Spanish firm YLAB Arquitectos has completed a faceted house on the outskirts of Barcelona that appears to have been stretched down a hill.
Located beside the Collserola Natural Park, the three-storey family home is constructed on a small plot, so YLAB Arquitectos designed the building as a simple cube then distorted it to make better use of space and viewpoints.
“The objectives of the project were to get the maximum possible building area within a tight budget and an optimised orientation of all openings while protecting the privacy of the owners,” said the architects.
“The upper faces are extruded upwards to form the roof,” they continued. “The side faces rotate to frame significant scenic moments, mindful of the neighbours’ privacy.”
The house is constructed from concrete and features a white-rendered exterior with seamless edges.
Windows and doors can be concealed behind perforated aluminium shutters that sit flush with the walls.
A double-height kitchen and dining room is positioned on the upper-ground floor and includes drawers, cupboards and counters built from dark-tinted elm, while the lower-ground floor contains a living room and studio with access to the garden.
Stone provides flooring throughout the the house and lines the walls of a top-floor bathroom. The main bedroom is also on this floor.
A Corten steel fence encloses the site and features vertical slits that offer glimpsed views of the house from the street.
The project is situated in the Vallvidrera neighbourhood, a residential area with views overlooking the city of Barcelona, surrounded by the Collserola natural park, in a very sloped and small plot situated between a valley and a pine forest.
The objectives of the project were to get the maximum possible building area within a tight budget and an optimised orientation of all openings while protecting the privacy of the owners. To achieve this, a compact three level volume was created.
The geometry arises directly from the plot given geometry and slope, reinterpreting the aesthetic of the site’s vernacular architecture with its sloped roof, widening on the upper floors to gain some additional area. Formally the volume is a single cube in which every face has been divided into four quadrants. The upper faces are extruded upwards to form the roof. The side faces rotate to frame significant scenic moments, mindful of the neighbours’ privacy.
The façade consists of a continuous skin that provides the same matt white aspect to walls, roofs and openings. The fixed windows are made of glass panes totally flush with the façade, and the operating ones have a white perforated aluminium shutter also installed flush with the skin.
A perforated Corten steel front fence at the low end of the plot gives pedestrian and car access to the property. The exterior spaces are formed by two terraces and the sloped areas have been modelled forming triangulated ramps. Pavements are made in multi-coloured slat, typical of this area, using long narrow tiles for the plane zones, and smaller irregular pieces on sloping ones.
The entrance level is composed by the first dormitory, the bath and the kitchen with a dining room area. The kitchen is in a double height space with two large windows that offer the best views over the valley. In the upper level there is the master bedroom and its bath, both oriented to the pine forest at the back side of the plot.
The semi-buried lower floor is formed by the technical and storage rooms, a living room and a studio both with access to the garden. In the interior of the house the floors and bathroom walls are covered with Capri natural stone and the walls and doors are finished in ivory white colour paint. In the double height area, large built-in dark tinted elm furniture builds the kitchen and dining area wall furniture and the island, ascending to the upper floor to form the master dormitory cupboards. 
Architecture and interior design: YLAB Arquitectos, Barcelona Authors: Tobias Laarmann and Yolanda Yuste Project: One family house edification Client: Private Area: 286.91 square metres Location: Vallvidrera, Barcelona
Craftsmen: Coter de Construcciones, Ebanistería Agüera Structure and walls: prefabricated pieces of celullar concrete by Ytong Facade outer skin: single layer coating Weber.Pral Terra Cemarksa, white painted Roof covering: ceramic pieces Colortech, by Tau Cerámica Outdoor paving: Dark rusty grey slate Metallic fence: Corten steel sheets cut and folded, designed by YLAB Interior flooring: polished Capri natural limestone Walls and ceilings: ivory white matt plastic paint
Spanish studio 2260mm Architects designed the interior for a family, partially dismantling an old house in the neighbourhood of Gracia. The architects inserted an extra storey and added a tiled courtyard filled with potted plants to bring more light into the ground floor.
Most of the decorative tiles were retained and surrounded by new, grey tiles, forming the floors of two bedrooms, a kitchen and dining room and the hallways.
“The tiles are from the early twentieth century and were often used in houses and apartments in Barcelona,” architect Manel Casellas told Dezeen.
“Most of the tiles in the corridor and the bedrooms are located in the original place. In the living room and the kitchen we designed ‘carpets’ with some existing coloured tiles,” he added, explaining the arrangement.
Part of the roof had to be removed to add the new first floor, providing a bedroom and indoor balcony with wooden floorboards.
Wooden ceiling beams are left exposed on both floors, but are painted white on the first floor.
Although it was dark, its facades face to the street and the inner garden. The project partially disassemble the house and maintains structure and distribution: a new interior courtyard illuminates the ground floor and gives the kitchen some facade.
We have used a dry construction system, with a new floor of wooden beams, OSB boards, wood fibre insulation and wooden floor. The new facade is isolated from the outside with wood fibreboard. We maintained pre-existing characteristics: interior woodwork and old tiles.
Delicate glazing fits around a bulky concrete structure at this hilltop house in Toledo by Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza (+ slideshow).
With views stretching out towards the Sierra de Gredos mountains, the two-storey Casa Rufo was designed by Alberto Campo Baeza as “a hut on top of the cave”, with a sequence of ground-floor rooms overshadowed by a long and narrow rooftop podium.
A concrete canopy, described by the architect as like “a table with ten legs”, shelters a small section of the podium and is surrounded by frameless glazing, creating a transparent room that is visible from the surrounding garden.
A staircase leads directly down from here to the living and dining room below, where the architect has placed the entrance to the house.
Rectangular cutaways transform some of the rooms into open-air courtyards. Two bedrooms face in towards these spaces, rather than out through the exterior walls.
Another opening reveals the location of a parking garage, while a smaller void functions as a rooftop swimming pool.
A row of poplar trees was planted behind the house, helping to screen it from views from the north-east.
Alberto Campo Baeza lives and works in Madrid, and also teaches architecture at the Madrid School of Architecture. His other projects include Offices for Junta de Castilla y León, a glazed office block concealed behind a sandstone enclosure.
The brief was to build a house on a hilltop outside of the city of Toledo. The hill faces southwest and offers interesting views of the distant horizon, reaching the Gredos Mountains to the northeast.
The site measures 60 x 40 m and has a 10-metre slope. At the highest point, we established a longitudinal podium, 6 meters wide and 3 meters high, that extends from side to side the entire length of the site. All of the house’s functions are developed inside of this long box, the length of concrete creating a long horizontal platform up high, as if it were a jetty that underlines the landscape with tremendous force.
This long concrete box is perforated and cut into, conveniently creating objects and voids to appropriately accommodate the requested functions (courtyard + covered courtyard, kitchen, living room-dining room-hall, bedroom, courtyard + courtyard, bedroom, garage, swimming pool, bedroom, courtyard).
In this distribution the living-dining room opens to the garden while the bedrooms face onto courtyards open to the sky and garden, affording them the necessary privacy. The stairway connecting the upper floor is situated in the area behind the living-dining room.
Isometric diagram
On top of the podium and aligned with it, a canopy with ten concrete columns with a square section support a simple flat roof, as if it were a table with ten legs. Under this roof, behind the columns, is a delicate glass box. To protect the views of the house from the back, a simple row of poplars were planted.
Lower floor plan
Once again, the theme of the hut on top of the cave. Once again, the theme of a tectonic architecture over a stereotomic architecture.
Architect: Alberto Campo Baeza Collaborating architects: Raúl Martinez, Petter Palander Structure: Juan Antonio Domínguez (HCA) Surveyor: José Miguel Agulló Builder: José Miguel Agulló
This house outside Barcelona by Spanish studio MDBA features a glazed living room that thrusts out towards the descending landscape (+ slideshow).
The three-storey family house is constructed over the edge of a hillside in the town of Sant Cugat del Vallès. Maria Diaz of MDBA wanted to take advantage of the panoramic views, so she designed an L-shaped residence that extends outwards at the rear.
Floor-to-ceiling glazing surrounds each rear elevation, plus a balcony stretches out beside the living room and kitchen.
In contrast, the front of the house has a white-rendered facade with square windows and a wooden front door.
“The form and the position of the house is a response to the shape and aspect of the plot, closed on the street side and open to the city landscape,” says the studio.
Steel I-beams support the weight of the projecting living room and extend up through the floors. A hillside patio is located underneath, while a terrace sits over the roof.
The house’s staircase is positioned next to the entrance, leading to three bedrooms on the top floor and a garage downstairs.
The form and the position of the house is a response to the shape and aspect of the plot, closed on the street side and open to the city landscape. Each level has its own relationship with the external space.
Vertical communication is a backbone that connects spaces on either side, it is closed at the entrance and it opens itself to the landscape in the upper floor.
Windows on the street define the landscape inside wall massivity and towards interior garden, the house opens itself looking to the city, massivity disappears and prevails the volume that looks for the landscape.
Spanish architect Miguel de Guzmán has completed a house with translucent plastic walls in Spain’s Sierra de Madrid mountain range and produced a movie showing Little Red Riding Hood as one of the residents.
Surrounded by pines trees, the two-storey house features cellular polycarbonate exterior walls, chunky chipboard interiors and a rooftop lawn.
Steel wires criss-cross over the facade to encourage climbing plants and vines to grow up around the house.
A double-height greenhouse runs along the southern facade, while a ground-floor dining room and a first-floor living room are positioned alongside and can overlook the space through internal windows.
There are two bedrooms on each level and bookshelves line the staircases that zigzag between the floors.
Miguel de Guzmán specified cheap and lightweight materials for construction. “The use of semi-mechanised building techniques, steel frames, sandwich panels and polycarbonate can speed up work time, reduce costs and give the building greater flexibility to make changes in the future,” he explains.
De Guzmán also works as an architectural photographer and produced the fairytale movie that presents the house. “The background idea for the movie was to play with the ‘little house in the woods’ concept,” he told Dezeen.
He adds: “In the world of children’s’ tales there is always a house in the middle of the forest where magical and mysterious things happen. I chose some of the most univerally known characters: Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Bears and The Big Bad Wolf, of course.”
Here’s a project description written by the architect:
Espinar House is built in a small village at the north face of the Sierra de Madrid. The site enjoys a privileged location, on the edge of the town bordering the Natural Park Panera. This situation is the starting point of the project, with the goals of maximising the mountain and park views to the northwest; optimising natural light considering it is at the north face of the mountain, and respecting the existing large pines. The dwelling is located in the centre of the lot with a perimeter defined by urban legal conditions as well as the situation of the trees.
The facade consists of a triple skin: First there is a sandwich panel with OSB boards (which provide the interior finish), extruded polystyrene foam insulation and waterproof chipboard, surrounding the core of the house rooms and living spaces. The second skin is made of cellular polycarbonate, providing extra insulation and expanding the perimeter to wrap a south-facing greenhouse that collects heat during winter days and can be opened to the outside during the summer, defining semi-outdoor extension space for the house. Steel cables allow climbing plants to grow on three sides of the house, as a vegetal third skin.
The use of semi mechanised building techniques, steel frames, sandwich panels and polycarbonate, can speed up work time, reduce costs and give the building greater flexibility to make changes in the future. Water and electrical facilities are accesible, making easier to expand, change or perform repairs.
The top deck area is a garden that tries to restore the portion of ground garden occupied by the building and provides a leisure space at the level of the treetops with views of the mountains.
Ground floor planFirst floor planRoof planCross section oneCross section two
This house by Spanish architect Daniel Isern looks like a cluster of concrete cubes, stacked up on a steep hillside on the outskirts of Barcelona.
The rural site faces out towards the coast, so Daniel Isern designed the four-storey residence with balconies and terraces on three of its floors, as well as a pair of glazed sunrooms.
The form of the building comprises overlapping volumes that integrate several cantilevers. Isern explains: “The reduced dimensions of the plot and the desire to leave the minimum imprint on the land led us to seek out a floor plan which, matching the trees that surround it, emerges from a trunk well anchored to the land and opens up in branches on each floor.”
The entrance to the house is on the uppermost floor. There are no rooms at this level, so residents work their way downstairs to find a living room and bedroom on the next level down, a dining room below that and a master bedroom on the bottom floor.
A concrete walls extends out from the north and south sides of the house and integrates a storage area for firewood.
“For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life – the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.” Claude Monet.
The project for this house emerged from a very simple premise, to build on a very steep piece of land with a gradient of almost 100%, boasting wonderful views and on a tight budget. It was this highly complicated plot of land, surrounded by pine trees, that defined a good part of this project. The land, and its perspectives, constantly changing as the hours pass, the colour of the trees, the movement of sun and shadows…
On the one hand, the reduced dimensions of the plot and its complex orography, and on the other the desire to leave the minimum imprint on the land led us to seek out a floorplan which, matching the trees that surround it, emerges from a trunk well anchored to the land and opens up in braches on each floor, in such a way that each branch becomes the terrace of the upper level at the same time as it becomes the porch of the lower one.
All this helps create a very formal building, with huge cantilevers facing out to emptiness, the woods and the sea which lie before it. A structure which opens up to these views and the sun, and which thanks to the terraces and the porches confuse the interior with the exterior. A building which is equally formal in both its volume and the materials which compose it. Concrete, iron, timber and stone combining in a way that emphasises the character of each one. In the end, the whole building represents a dialogue between emptiness and fullness, between materials, between outside and inside; seeking out a balance between these highly contrasting parts.
Madrid studio Ábaton has rebuilt a crumbling stone stable in the countryside of western Spain and converted the building into a self-sufficient family home (+ slideshow).
Located miles away from the nearest town, the old building was too remote to be connected to an electrical grid or water supply, so Ábaton had to make use of renewable energy sources. The orientation of the building helps to generate a solar heat gain, while two nearby streams provide hydro electricity, as well as clean water for drinking and bathing.
The stone and timber structure of the stable had significantly deteriorated, so the architects had to replace most of the walls. “[We] decided that building from scratch was the best option as the stable was in a terrible shape,” they explain.
The rustic stone exterior of the house was restored on all four elevations. Windows sit within deep recesses and can be screened behind large wooden shutters that reference the style of stable doors.
Many of the walls inside the house were removed and replaced with metal columns, opening up a large double-height living room along the entire length of the building.
Two bedrooms are positioned at the back, plus the old hay lofts were renovated to create an extra three upstairs.
A swimming pool runs along the front of the building, doubling up as an irrigation tank, plus a small patio is tucked away at the back, where it is overlooked by bedrooms and bathrooms.
The architects added limestone floors throughout the house, plus exposed concrete walls and wooden ceilings. “In short, a mix of modern cement and iron beams coexist with well-worn stone, weather-beaten wood and local stone,” add the architects.
Located in a privileged environment in the province of Cáceres, the goal was to transform an abandoned stable into a family home by completely renovating it in a way that would be consistent and respectful with the environment. At the end, the studio decided that building from scratch was the best option as the stable was in a terrible shape.
High on a hill and far from city water or an electrical grid, a thorough investigation resulted in the addition of photovoltaic and hydro power (weighted toward solar in summer and hydro in winter) and worked to ensure the home wouldn’t use much energy. The building’s original orientation also helped as southern exposure allowed for the sun to be the main source of heat during the winter.
A generous eave prevents much sun from entering the home during summer, thus keeping it cool. Large wooden shutters that slide closed like a second skin, cover the large windows at night to trap in most of the home’s daily solar heat gain.
As the building is located far from city water but perfectly located below two streams that flow year round the water is pure and can be used for drinking and bathing. The swimming pool acts as a holding tank for use in irrigation.
In the interior nature has been incorporated almost to every room in the house: bathrooms with views of the interior patio and its stone water fountain, bedrooms with huge picture windows overlooking the countryside.
The position of the architecture is as it was originally and the material used are also the same though given the home’s crumbling state the façade was built with a mix of cement and local stone.
In the interior, supporting walls were replaced by light metal pillars, the haylofts in the upper area were converted into bedrooms and the enormous central lounge serves different purposes. In short, a mix of modern cement and iron beams coexist with well-worn stone, weather-beaten wood and local stone.
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