Jorge Vidal Studio and Marcos Catalán & Marta Garcia Orte Studio use the existing walls, proposing access to the patio facing south. A series of openings were raised through large wooden frames, which not only frame the landscape but also illuminate and ventilate the spacious rooms.
The house is made up of slate and granite from a nearby quarry; the chestnut tree trunks that would later be used for the beams, furniture, and carpentry were felled and dried, and different elements (lintel concrete, perimeter arches, chimneys, sinks, etc.) contain aggregates and sand from the area.
Cortijo Jamonero House by Jorge Vidal and Marcos Catalán. Photograph by Eugeni Pons.
Cortijo Jamonero House by Jorge Vidal and Marcos Catalán. Photograph by Eugeni Pons.
Description of project by Jorge Vidal, Marcos Catalán
Cortijo Garciaz House is the result of an intervention in an old farmhouse linked for decades to livestock farming.
The raised house strengthens and recovers the local farmhouse typology, breaking down the program into various bodies of changing geometry and favoring integration into the landscape as if it were a rural town.
Blending in with the existing walls, the house offers access through the south-facing patio, culminating in a sequence of outdoor spaces between holy oaks and rocky areas.
Cortijo Jamonero House by Jorge Vidal and Marcos Catalán. Photograph by Eugeni Pons.
The construction of the entire project has been carried out with a high degree of craftsmanship: the stone—slate and granite—was selected from a nearby quarry; the chestnut trunks that would later be used for beams, furniture, and carpentry were felled and dried; the concrete of lintels, perimeter arches, chimneys, and sinks contains aggregates and sand from the area; and copper was also manipulated to manufacture all the taps on site.
With the aim of bringing the house closer to the landscape and opening it to the outside, a series of openings are proposed through large wooden frames, which not only frame the landscape but also illuminate and ventilate the spacious rooms. These boxes are still inhabited windows: artifacts that contain sofas, shelves, benches and that provide the domesticity that the interior of a house requires. In this way, the facades become the reflection of this interior life instead of responding to purely compositional criteria.
