Hasta La Ideas

Barcelona studio Hidalgo Hartmann Arquitectura has completed a concrete house with a triangular profile in the rural outskirts of Girona, Spain (+ slideshow).

Casa Montfullà is located on a hillside overlooking the plains, but the house’s plot itself is approximately level, so Hidalgo Hartmann Arquitectura added sloping walls to create a building that appears to grow out of the ground.

“We placed a silent, hermetic volume that emerges from the site and adopts the original profile of the hill, like a fortress that visually dominates the landscape,” explain the architects.

Laid out in three horizontal bands, the building contains both a two-storey house and a terrace behind its triangular concrete walls.

A two-storey entrance area at one end accommodates bedrooms, bathrooms and a parking garage, while the middle section is a double-height living and dining room with a glazed elevation offering a view towards the fields.

During warmer months residents can slide open the glass to make use of the split-level terrace and swimming pool at the far end of the structure.

Hidalgo Hartmann Arquitectura is led by architect Jordi Hidalgo Tané and interior designer Daniela Hartmann. Other concrete buildings by the pair include a centre for rescued turtles, dolphins and birds and a house with four wings and an underground entrance.

Other recently completed Spanish residences include a social housing block on the Canary Islands and a stark concrete house with richly stained timber shutters. See more architecture in Spain.

Photography is by Jordi Hidalgo Tané.

Here’s a project description from Hidalgo Hartmann Arquitectura:

Casa Montfullà

We find ourselves on a horizontal ground, a corner plot raised on two large slopes like a vantage point from which to enjoy superb views towards the agricultural plain that stretches at his feet until reaching Salt and the city of Girona.

It is thus an exceptional setting that claims for an intervention that recognizes the attributes of the site and put them in value.

We placed a silent, hermetic volume that emerges from the site and adopts the original profile of the hill, like a fortress that visually dominates the landscape.

The volume encloses itself from the outside and is protected from the mediocre constructions that surround it by using the broken geometry of two thick walls. These walls comprise a continuous space from the inside out that creates in form of a terrace, a world of its own, which turns our attention to the distance.

The section shows the continuity of its spaces from the outdoor space to the studio on the top floor across the living room and the courtyard that separates and unites at the same time. The use of concrete for the construction of the house gives the object weight, mass and texture which is needed to provide coherence to the idea.

Location: Montfullà. Girona
Year: 2007-2012
Surface: 340 sqm

Authors of the project: Hidalgo Hartmann. Jordi Hidalgo Tané, arquitecto, Daniela Hartmann, interiorista.
Technical Architect: Rafel Serra Torrent.

Collaborators: Ana Roque, arquitecto, Rafel Serra Torrent, arquitecto técnico, Julia Fernandez Roldán, arquitecto.
Promoters: Carme Ferrer i Xavier Puig.

Construction:
Estructures Olot S.L (company structures)
LI-BRA S.L (general construction company)
Fusteria Serra (wood carpentry)
Plantalech (aluminium carpentry)
Electrica Masaló (company facilities)

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Hidalgo Hartmann Arquitectura appeared first on Dezeen.

This stark concrete house in Spain by Alcolea+Tárrago Arquitectos features richly stained timber shutters that fold back to reveal large glass doors (+ slideshow).

Located in the town of Sesma, Casa MP is home to a family of four, made up of a young couple and their two daughters. It was conceived by Pamplona studio Alcolea+Tárrago Arquitectos as “a monolithic volume that emphasises its archetypal geometry using concrete and stained pinewood.”

The dark timber detailing creates a distinct contrast with the muted grey of the concrete and was added as a reference to local architecture. It frames a series of recessed windows and is also used for doors and furnishings inside the house.

The concrete was formed against timber and its surface shows the rough grain of the wooden boards.

The house is at the peak of the sloping and takes advantage of views of the surrounding fields. This position allows room for a two-car garage to one side, as well as a rear garden where residents can plant vegetables.

The main entrance to the house is through a three-metre-wide terrace that can be screened from the street using a translucent sliding screen.

An open-plan living room and kitchen occupies the entire ground floor to create a space for working and relaxing, while four bedrooms are located upstairs and a multi-purpose room and storage area are in the basement.

Other recently completed houses in Spain include a residence in Alicante with an 18-metre-long balcony and an X-shaped concrete house near Barcelona.

Photography is by Iñaki Bergera.

Here’s a project description from Alcolea+Tárrago Arquitectos:

The commission began in a private competition, in which our office was selected not by a particular project, but by the attitude showed to the clients to build a maximum house with a very small budget on a complicated plot, a very sharp slope. And not least, the involvement and commitment, perhaps beyond any logical reason, to propose successive approximations to the project (up to five preliminary projects and a full executive project with its visa) before the final solution.

Anyway, the program answers common needs of a conventional home for a young couple with two young daughters, including a garage for two cars and a small garden and orchard. It is a monolithic volume that emphasizes its archetypal geometry using concrete and stained pinewood. Any gesture is made to the better orientation and views, and to clear the plot as much as possible for the small garden and orchard to plant some vegetables and fruit trees.

The house, therefore, is set at the highest level of the site. It follows a restrictive regulation on alignment and height. But this also permits to dominate the southern view towards the grain fields and smooth foothills of the River Ebro.

Following similar strategies, the two car garage is separated from the main volume to close the north limit. Between the house and the garage, there is an entrance and patio access three meters wide. Large sliding doors in pine board communicate the garage and garden.

The ground floor of the house is linked to the garden through large windows. A single space includes the living, kitchen and a place for leisure and work. Four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a laundry room are in the upper floor. In the basement there is a multipurpose space, facilities and storage rooms.

The building details in reinforced concrete unify structure, finishing and texture, and control the total budget. The windows have shutters in stained pine board, very common in the folk architecture of the area.

The thermal inertia of the concrete volume as well as an underfloor heating and cooling system using geothermal energy determines a high efficiency in a quite extreme climate, very cold in winter and very hot in summer, without resigning to large windows for a maximum use of natural light. A very small local construction company owned by a family friend and local subcontractors carried out the construction. And explains the delay of the execution process.

Above: site plan – click above for larger image

Above: basement floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: section – click above for larger image

Above: north elevation – click above for larger image

Above: south elevation – click above for larger image

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Alcolea+Tárrago Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.

This bright-white house in Alicante by Spanish studio Fran Silvestre Arquitectos features an 18-metre-long balcony that stretches out towards the Balearic Sea (+ slideshow + movie).

Fran Silvestre Arquitectos designed the structure as a single monolithic volume that nestles against the rockface whilst also projecting out towards the shoreline.

Living rooms and bedrooms are contained within the protruding upper storey and offer panoramic views through an entirely glazed facade.

A staircase climbs through and across an exterior wall to connect these rooms with an infinity pool and terrace.

Concrete was used for the entire structure, but the walls were coated in stucco to create the clean white aesthetic.

The architects explain how they always try to design houses around the habits of future residents. ”Dialogue is always present, since the work becomes part of the identity of those who inhabit it,” they explain. “This dialogue seeks comfort and also utility, and examines the conflicts and joys of daily acts of human life.”

Others houses by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos that we’ve featured include a residence where all the rooms are on show and a wedge-shaped house that thrusts out from a rock face.

See more Spanish houses on Dezeen, including a house with four hovering concrete wings.

Photography is by Diego Opazo, movie is by Alfonso Calza.

Here’s a project description from Fran Silvestre Arquitectos:

House on the Cliff
Calpe, Alicante.

We like the virtue of architecture which makes possible constructing a house on air, walking on water…
An abrupt plot of land overlooking the sea, where what is best is to do nothing. It invites to stay.
A piece that respects the land’s natural contour is set in it.
Above, a shadow, the house itself, looking calmly at the Mediterranean.
Under the sun, the swimming-pool brings us closer to the sea, it becomes a quiet cove.
In the inflection point, the stairway proposes a evocative path, a garden in the basement…

Due to the steepness of the plot and the desire to contain the house in just one level, a three-dimensional structure of reinforced concrete slabs and screens adapting to the plot’s topography was chosen, thus minimizing the earthwork.

This monolithic, stone-anchored structure generates a horizontal platform from the accessing level, where the house itself is located.

The swimming-pool is placed on a lower level, on an already flat area of the site.

The concrete structure is insulated from the outside and then covered by a flexible and smooth white lime stucco.

The rest of materials, walls, pavements, the gravel on the roof… all maintain the same colour, respecting the traditional architecture of the area, emphasizing it and simultaneously underlining the unity of the house.

Architecture: Fran Silvestre Arquitectos
Project team: Fran Silvestre, María José Sáez – Principals in charge
Maria Masià, Adrián Mora, Jordi Martínez José V. Miguel – Collaborating architects

Structural engineer: David Gallardo | UPV
Building engineer: Vicente Ramos, Esperanza Corrales, Javier Delgado

Interior design: ALFARO HOFMANN
Collaborators: Fran Ayala, Ángel Fito
Contractor: Construcciones Alabort

Location: Toix Mascarat, Calpe, Alicante

Site area: 962,84 sq m
Built area: 242,00 sq m

Cost: (P.E.M.) 650.000 euros

Above: lower floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: middle floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: upper floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: roof plan – click above for larger image

Above: cross section one – click above for larger image

Above: cross section two – click above for larger image

Above: cross section three – click above for larger image

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Fran Silvestre Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.

This house overlooking the sea in southern Spain by MVN Architects comprises white rectilinear volumes on a base of travertine marble (+ slideshow).

Completed in 2007, AA house is positioned on a hillside above the coastal city of Almería.

Glass doors slide open to connect the living and dining room with a terrace and swimming pool, where residents can watch the sun rise over the Mediterranean Sea.

Bedrooms line the southern facade, alongside a sauna and an artists’ studio.

Other houses we’ve recently featured in Spain include one with a transparent glass facade.

See more Spanish houses on Dezeen »

Here’s some more information from MVN Architects:

The AA Home project arose from the need to build a site able to create a meaningful place. “So the house does not destroy this sense of peace that I had the first time I looked at the horizon from this hill, and to protect it” they asked us.

All the work was focused on developing project strategies that would enable to open the heart towards the horizon. Rest in light, pick up the nuances of the sunrise and sunset. Be part of a privileged viewpoint, where the inhabitants were permanently welcome.

And so was sought to ensure that the limit of the house was the horizon, a boundary that does not want to confine, but permanent opening.

A house seeking shelter and protection, quiet at last. And so it calls at all times to the heart without forcing any door, without opening them, without crossing thresholds, to experience the peace of the horizon made of sea, of wind, of rock, the horizon made architecture for many years.

Program of Needs and Previous Conditionings

The site is located in Almeria, municipality of Mojacar, in the surrounding area of Cerro del Albar. It is a rugged topography, with steep and open distant horizon over the sea. On the site there exists a small platform, which will be used as base for the building. The project had to answer two questions raised by the client: One, offer a solution that would allow feeling the horizon as part of the house. Two, develop a housing program for a marriage with two children, according to the following needs: garage and kitchen; lounge dining room and office-library; main room, rooms for the children and guests; and a small sauna, workshop of sculpture and painting, and court-warehouse for drying and storage of parts.

Setting Up Strategy

The housing places on an existing platform oriented to the east, toward the Mediterranean Sea, in an area with a steep slope. Given the rugged terrain, the general organization of the project has been defined by the need to adapt in a rational way to the topography, avoiding dismantle that might be excessive and so minimize the impact that the building could suppose to the environment. The location of the home taking advantage of the small natural platform, minimizes earth moving and get a perfect adaptation of the architecture to the field. In lower levels, other platforms continue structuring the plot, creating zones of fruit-bearing trees and garden. Some of these platforms use existing stone walls in the plot, remains of ancient terraced plantations, thus recovering the character that had long ago the area. In this sense, the project maintains a constant relation with the environment, promoting the transition of scales and protecting the landscape value of the area.

Opening Strategy

The housing is organized into three bands that are displaced longitudinally: The services band, partially buried, anchoring the house on the slope. It organises the uncovered parking, court of service, pantry and kitchen, the latter with a small terrace. The central band receives the main elements of the house. On having been delayed with respect to the other two, it sets up a large patio where is proposed the access, protected behind the fold of the walls. Once inside, a small patio glass distributes the routes, introducing a diffuse light sifted by vegetation. The main double-height space articulates the relationship between the light and the horizon. Dining and living room establish a strong link with the sea, opening fully on a first platform that starts the dialog with the environment. This space is bounded by the dressing room and the main bedroom, which configure a cantilevered body over the visual flight of the landscape, again toward the coast line. The third band is the closure of the housing and its main facade. It includes rooms for the children, the guest room, the sauna, and the space for sculpture and painting, with a courtyard protected from the wind. A somewhat lower terrace provides an open space at noon, resolving the encounter with the ground.

Floor plan – click above for larger image

Constructive Strategy

The whole set is proposed as structural system of reinforced concrete, with Thermo-clay closure and solution of ecological flat roof supported by slab Filtron base. It is projected to finished with white monolayer mortar (with contribution of 10% of ochre) according to the architecture built in the area of influence of the Cerro del Albar. The pavement is solved with travertine marble, extending this finish to the outside to run ground platforms linked to the use of housing.

Section 1 – click above for larger image

In wet rooms and kitchen it is used compound of quartz and resins type Silestone to run tiled pavements. The interior woodwork is white pre-lacquered MDF. The external joinery is composed of triple aluminium clad: the outer element is a sliding structure of adjustable slats; intermediate carpentry, a Climalit glass enclosure; and the inner element, a sliding mesh anti-insect. At the opening of the lounge toward the horizon, there are provided two spaces where fully collect the woodwork. On the outdoor spaces, surfaces that do not constitute open platforms to the horizon have been finished off with crushed aggregate of rocks from the area. The earth retaining runs through wall of riprap, selecting rocks of the area that will allow the integration of the project on the environment.

Section 2  – click above for larger image

Situation: Era del Albar, Mojacar, Almeria. Spain
Date of project: 2004-2006
Date of work: 2006-2007
Architects: Daniel H Nadal, Diego Varela, Emilio Medina
Technical Architect: Maria Isabel García Mellado
Promoter / owner: Private
Construction company: AJCC Constructions

Section 3 – click above for larger image

Total budget: 400,000 Euros
Constructed area: 285 m2
Cost material execution: 1,140 €/m2
Financing; Private

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MVN Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

This bright white wedge-shaped house by Spanish studio Fran Silvestre Arquitectos thrusts out from the rock face behind it in the valley town of Ayora, near Valencia (+ slideshow).

The angled roof mirrors the slope of the surrounding ground, creating triangular elevations on the sides of the three-storey building.

Large panels slide across windows on the front and side of the house to maintain privacy for bedrooms on the middle floor.

The top floor is twice the size of the floors below and contains a third bedroom, as well as a living room that opens out onto a secluded courtyard.

See more Spanish houses on Dezeen »

Photography is by Fernando Alda and Juan Rodríguez.

Here’s some text from the architects:

House on Mountainside Overlooked by Castle
Ayora, Valencia

The building is located in a landscape of unique beauty, the result of a natural and evident growth.

The mountain, topped by a castle, is covered by a blanket housing through a system of aggregation by simple juxtaposition of pieces generated fragmented target tissue that adapts to the topography.

The project proposes to integrate into the environment, respecting their strategies of adaptation to the environment and materials away from the mimesis that would lead to misleading historicism, and showing the time constructively to meet the requirements of the “new people.”

In this way the house is conceived as a piece placed on the ground, joining in the gap.

A piece built on the same white lime, the same primacy of the massif on the opening, which takes the edge of the site to have their holes and integrated into the fragmentation of the environment.

The indoor space is divided by the void that is the core of communication cut parallel disposition of the mountain without touching it.

On the ground floor are the garage and cellar, on a volume it has two floors with four rooms.

Two of them, the rooms at the intermediate level are open to the private street, the other two on the upper level overlook above the houses opposite, the Valley of Ayora.

One of them, the study is opened in turn to the central double height, incorporating it into their space.

Across the gap, and on the mountain, are the areas facing the garden day illuminated by light reflected on the south slope of the castle oxidized.

Architecture: Fran Silvestre Arquitectos

Project Architect: Fran Silvestre, Maria José Sáez

Project Team: Fran Silvestre – Project Architect
María José Sáez – Project Architect
Ángel Ruíz – Architect collaborator

Building Engineer: Pedro Vicente López
Interior Design: ALFARO HOFMANN
Contractor: Cooperativa Montemayor

Location: Ayora. Valencia
Site Area: 477,06 m2
Built Area: 230,00 m2

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by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.