Anna Noguera achieves that the new performances dialogue with the old looking for the compromise between the past and the present times. The natural light inputs shape the volumes and enhance the fluidity of the spaces, in the set, which consists of a built-up body and a side garden with a street facade.
Description of project by Anna Noguera
The Alemanys 5 house is situated in the oldest part of Girona’s old district. Although it is difficult to determine the age of the building structures, the most important alteration dates from the sixteenth century.
The reform has been approached as a search for the most intrinsic characteristics of the original construction, and the building has been freed of additions and recent reforms, interpreting the old elements not so much through an historical perspective as through their architectural qualities.
The minimalism of the intervention suggests the austerity of past times. The new work dialogues with the old. The entry of natural light helps shape the volumes and emphasises the fluidity of the spaces. The refurbishment is resolved with very few materials: stone, wood, steel and concrete, used in their natural colours and textures.
The architectural unit consists of the body of the building and a side garden fronting onto the street. The building has two arms, the first one aligned with the street and the other with the thick interior wall. The staircase, positioned in the space in between these two bodies, acts as a pivot point from which the rest of the layout is generated.
The garden, enclosed by high stone walls, has been formalised into three consecutive planes that go from hardest to softest: concrete, lawn and water. The zone contiguous to the house is in planed concrete. The plane of lawn floats above the water of the pool. It is like a dark reservoir that overflows and disappears, reflecting the neighbouring wall.
