The complex is completed with a large exterior annex patio that occupies the other half of the plot.
Description of project by Sebastian Arquitectos
A daisy of 8 patios in a sea of brick.
The difficulty of locating the house in a nondescript neighborhood of urban periphery built-in brick suggested a response that should balance integration and self-absorption. The house was conceived as a house turned towards its interior and domesticated environment, full of courtyards, but the materiality of the brick was entrusted with the task of integration in this environment of terraced houses with exposed face, although in turn they differ from it by the arrangement and materiality of the rigging carried out.
The project builds a 700 sqm courtyard house developed on two floors, like an inhabited tapestry, and turned towards the interior of the plot through a system of different fractioned courtyards that relate to the section of the house. Like a rosary of petals, these courtyards serve the domestic pieces, modifying their appearance, dimension, character, and vegetation depending on the use and privacy of the room to which they open.
The courtyard is configured as a fundamental part of the house that, once protected from the street, can open freely to these domesticated outdoor spaces.
Compositionally the section of the house is organized in two bands, a lower one of blocks for enclosures and server spaces on which rests the second body of roofs resolved in a special volumetry. The first one collects the habitable height in a tapestry of ceramic pieces that house the server spaces, whether bathrooms, toilets, storage, etc... And between which the fundamental spaces of the house are developed in continuity. Despite the apparent complexity of the developed plan, the perspectives allow to visually sweep the entire dimension of the house through rich sequences of spaces of use and courtyards to the outside. The second level, that of the upper coverage, rests on the first, and in it, the roof heights of the different spaces are developed, which are expanded or adjusted according to the particularities of each type of use.
The dwelling is divided into servants' and servants' quarters, a floor plan modulated based on two types of bays depending on their use, to respond to an extensive program distributed over two floors linked by the courtyards and the central space of the staircase. The main floor above ground level houses the fundamental programs of the dwelling, while the basement accommodates the garage, installation spaces, storage, and wine cellar.
As for the exterior spaces, the various courtyard gardens extend the interior alignments of the house, extending with paved or landscaped surfaces. Some of the courtyards descend or open skylights to bring light, ventilation, and the sound of fountains into the basement.
Materially, the project gravitates between two points: the profusion of reddish, traditional ceramics, which provides warmth and certain craftsmanship, and the concrete that builds a series of "domes" that levitate or rest on these ceramic cloths depending on the use and the privacy sought, which is also achieved through lattices, open, screened or closed openings. In the screened openings, a luminous and breathable play of the ceramic lattices has been sought, with a nod to the Mudejar style, so characteristic and identifying of the area.
