RUE Arquitectos's project for House #20 born of adaptation to the planning regulations and the immediate context of a between party walls dwelling. Different façade setbacks result in small terraces and staying spaces while allowing light to enter the courtyard.
Following the Mediterranean hierarchy of public and private spaces, the building houses the spaces for a day at the lower levels, while the rooms and spaces for the night are relegated to the upper floors. At the same time the staircase acquires a leading role, also illuminated thanks to the setbacks and acts as a distributor space between plants.
Furthermore the number of materials is reduced in an effort for minimising the complexity of the project. With this gesture is achieved great unity throughout the house, which alternates exposed concrete, microcemento and uglass. These materials give light to inner spaces, achieving greater amplitude and a friendly atmosphere.
Description of the project by RUE Arquitectos
The lot is located between party walls with dimensions 6 meters wide by 25 meters long. The new construction keeps the sequence house-yard-barn, as usual in the old town. The new building also keeps the alignments and volumetry set by planning regulations. Access is produced through an entrance porch that also can be used as a garage. The living room and the kitchen-dining room must be understood as an only double-height space, extended towards the yard and the guest annex.
The stepping facade in the yard allows the entrance of sunlight during most of the day, generating different terraces alongside each room. The oblique alignment of these terraces helps to solve the irregular shape of the plot. The translucent character of these façade planes increases the uptake of natural light, while preserving the privacy inside from adjoining properties.
The different height of upper levels around the stairs has for aim to minimize the horizontal circulation, so that the stairs assume the function of a vertical corridor, with no need of landings or hallways. The rooms are disposed according to a privacy gradient, with the day area located downwards and the day area located upwards. While first one (day) occupies an only double-height space opened mainly to the yard, bedrooms are divided by a solution consisting of translucent enclosure and curtains, that provides both spatial continuity and privacy to the user at the same time. The basement level contains an area destined to installations and a second living room illuminated through a small yard. The under-roof floor features a big terrace and an auxiliar area. The terrace favors the illumination of the staircase.
The alternate disposition of the floors around the stairs allows to treat differently each room of the house by varying the ceiling heights, giving a different scale to each use. The house is thought in cubic meters, in opposition to the usual flat conception of housing measured in square meters.
The palette of materials used in the construction of the house is really reduced, predominating the concrete slabs in ceilings, continuous pavement of microcement on floors, u-glass planes inside the house and on facades, while plasterboard panels and the texture of brick masonry painted in white are alternated as interior finish on the walls.
The sustaining structure consists of two reinforced concrete portal frames located on the party walls that bear the semi-prefabricated concrete slabs of each floor of the house.
