- Area: 553 m²
- Year: 2009
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Photographs: Pablo Ausúcua
Text description provided by the architects. The house and the workshop are located in a plot in a small housing estate in Mijares. It has good accessibility, a rural environment and far views of the mountains.
The design solves a complex program, considering the determinations of the planning and the characteristics of the site: access from the good orientation; a sloped, trapezium-shaped plot; orientations; sights; adjacent buildings; and the presence of a great tree, a salix fragilix.
The building is placed parallel to the access road leaving a small well orientated grassland in the front. A sufficient stripe of land is left in the back to protect the willow and make room for a little vegetable garden. The topography of the plot allows to superimpose the different areas of the program (parents area, childrens area and workshop), each one with an independent access and a certain degree of privacy.
The construction is very simple. The half-buried volume is heavy, whereas elevated pieces are light. The workshop is built with walls and slabs of reinforced concrete. The house mantains the concrete core mixing with a directional steel structure. The thin aluminium panelling for the façades and roof convey this sense of weightlessness which contrasts with the massive concrete structure of the workshop. The roofs are finished off with a landscape solution. The floors of the study are made of a resin based mortar and in the house we use floating larch-wood floors. The exteriors are tiled with gray limestone and the bathrooms are panelled with phenolic boards. Inside, the doors are made of glass, except in the top floor where they remain hidden in a hanging plywood board.
The spaces have a certain air of the Californian architecture of the fifties, so well portrayed by Julius Schulman and recreated by the artist Rodney Graham in his work "The Gifted Amateur. " They are characterized by the constructive solutions, the big sculptural openings that allow the entry of light and, the spreading of the building in the environment. The otherwise excessively industrial character is toned down by the natural wood used for the flooring, the wavy curtains and the furniture.
The fixed furniture has been built with steel plate, plywood and glass. Pieces of furniture by Le Corbusier, Charles & Ray Eames, Maarten Van Severen, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and Patricia Urquiola were also used.
The form of the building reflects the organization of three superimposed volumes which dialogue with each other through the contrast of materials and the alternated windows.
