Architecture studio H3o Architects transformed an old barn of a traditional Catalan farmhouse in Sant Just Desvern, a town bordering Barcelona, into a home for a historian passionate about creativity and art.

To approach the project, the legend of a lightning bolt that crossed this house, known as Can Cardona, years ago is taken as a starting point. It is said that the lightning came through the chimney and circled the room for a few seconds.

As a result of this story, the architects of H3o Architects have designed a space with great dynamism and a radiant color that appropriates it, using the idea of lightning that is formalized in light and becomes the element that divides the rooms and ends up becoming walls.

The proposal integrates lines, geometries, materialities, and colors that generate an attractive visual effect far from conventional visions and spaces under a gabled roof. A proposal that responds and blends with the user's tastes in art and creativity.


Relámpago House by H3o Architects. Photograph by José Hevia.

Description of project by H3o Architects

H3o Architects, a young architecture studio based in Barcelona, presents Relámpago House, one of its most special and unusual residential projects. The renovation of a modest 55m2 old barn within a traditional Catalan farmhouse on the outskirts of Barcelona, situated in Sant Just Desvern, has given rise to a distinctive space full of color, which tells its own memorable story to those who visit it.

Driven by the desires of its owner, a historian with a passion for creativity and art, the project takes as starting point, the legend of the lightning that crossed Can Cardona many years ago. The architects wanted to depict this inspiration in a functional yet bold design that would stimulate the client's artistic interest.


Relámpago House by H3o Architects. Photograph by José Hevia.

Relámpago, the name of the house, is Spanish for lightning, alluding to the story about the natural phenomenon that holds historical significance for the property. The gable-roofed house features lightning as a central element, playing a key role in defining and delineating distinct areas within the house. When lightning is transformed into both a wall and a lamp, it promptly shapes and configures the functionality of the interior spaces.

“Relampago House is a project that speaks of one of our great concerns in spatial exploration: morphology and colour approached through fantasy. We used the incredible story of a lightning that struck the house years ago as a starting point for the design".

Adrià Orriols, Joan Gener and Miquel Ruiz of h3o Architects.

With this renovation, the studio's main intention is to generate a unique architectural experience that departs from conventional bland interiors. By combining an outbreaking architecture with a highly distinctive concept, brimming with identity, it results in a proposal that merges geometries, materials and colours, giving life and shape to a stimulating interior where fluidity between spaces stand as protagonist.


Relámpago House by H3o Architects.

A zigzagging distribution shapes the different areas of the house. With a distinctive morphology composed of lines and angular geometries that flow and blend with each other, the project creates a visual and spatial effect that amazes the user. Furthermore, the wide range of strategically applied vibrant colors on the different surfaces of the house allows both to highlight shapes and volumes, as well as distinguish and unify spaces. This chromatic choice creates an atmosphere that challenges the usual spatial perception of the user and, in combination with a series of small, seemingly out-of-context stone elements, opens the way to sensations and memories that transform the space.

Relámpago House transcends the conventional notion of home. By celebrating a passion for the arts through an authentic narrative, it aims to introduce a different vision of everyday life, where creativity and originality are the essence of each day.

More information

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Architects
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Collaborators
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Art direction.- Claudia Mauriño.
 

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Area
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55 m².

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Location
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Barcelona, Spain.

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Manufacturers
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Doors.- Eclisse.
Tiles.- Fabresa.
Bathroom devices.- Roca.
Lights.- Monsó i Benet.
Floor.- Ralpe.
Equipment and furniture.- Casa Protea, Domestico Shop, Curated By.

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Photography
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José Hevia.

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H3o Architects is a Barcelona-based architecture firm formed by Adrià Orriols, Joan Gener and Miquel Ruiz. Their practice promotes innovative and speculative designs in the fields of architecture and urbanism facing the challenges of contemporary society. Climate change, social responsibility and the hybridization of human and non-human realities are at the core of each project.

In the field of theory, the studio investigates the membrane as the epidermis of architecture and its social, political and ecological implications. Among its projects are the conversion of the Convent of the Poor Clares into the new library in Arenys de Mar, the 155-unit housing block at Kop-Dakpark (Rotterdam), the winner of the Europan 15 Rotterdam Award, the renaturalization of the square in Castell d'Aro, and the new residence for the elderly in Es Migjorn Gran, Menorca, all of them ongoing projects. One of their latest projects was the ephemeral installation “Nomad Assembly" in the Mercat dels Encants, which was the central stage of Model.

Joan Gener González. Master in Architecture at the School of Architecture of Barcelona, ETSAB, UPC, with an excellent qualification in his Final Thesis. He was an exchange student at the EPFL, where he followed project courses in Lausanne and Basel with Harry Gugger from Herzog & de Meuron. He collaborates with a two-year scholarship in the Urban Planning Department of the ETSAB.

He has worked in Geneva and also in Barcelona with Enric Ruiz-Geli on the project for the NOU BULLI  in Roses.

From 2014 to 2017 he worked with the prestigious chef Albert Adrià on developing new projects in all stages: conceptualization, budget, management and execution.

Among his works, there is the showroom of La Cala, the Bodega 1900  and the Creative Workshop of el Barri. Being his main work the coordination of the restaurant ENIGMA by RCR Architects.

Adrià Orriols Camps. Master with Honours in Architecture at the School of Architecture of Barcelona, ETSAB, UPC. Since 2012 he has worked at José Antonio Martínez Lapeña and Elias Torres studio. Since 2014 he has been responsible for the projects of the studio, among which are:

– CASA VICENS Restoration and rehabilitation into the museum, by Antonio Gaudí, World Heritage – 2014/2017
– MURALLAS DE PALMA Prince’s Bastion Restoration
– TORRES DEL TEMPLE Restoration, Palma de Mallorca
– Coverage project for the Ronda de Dalt
– Design of Lluis Clotet exhibition. National Architecture Award
– Plaça de les Glòries Competition, 2014, finalist
– REHABILITATION OF THE OLD BORSÍ, 2018, 1st prize
– Palma Mallorca Seafront Promenade Competition, 1st prize

He has collaborated in several ETSAB publications: Bases for the Project I -II and Landscape Architecture 1977-1995. He won the 1st prize for Pasatjes Metropolitans.

Miquel Ruiz Planella. Master with Honours in Architecture at the School of Architecture of Barcelona, ETSAB, UPC. He wins the Best Final Thesis Award, ETSAB, UPC, for the academic years 2015-2016. Therefore, he participates in Archiprix and the UNESCO-UIA & MIDO student design prize for responsible architecture. He studied the 5th course of architecture at TUB, Technische Universität Berlin and also has Postgraduate studies in Business and Administration, at UPF.

In the practice field, he has collaborated with “Jordi Garcés-de Seta-Bonet” on, among others, the competition of “el Salón de Reinos” for el Museo del Prado. He also worked at Jaime Prous Architects. He also has assisted the Department of Urban Planning, DUOT, ETSAB, and UPC, in tasks as an external.

His interest in the theoretical aspects of architecture made him get a scholarship to collaborate at the Theory Department in ETSAB with professor Toni Ramon. With him, he later worked on the “Observatory of Theatres at Risk”. He was also invited to Bauhaus Dessau by Roger Bundschuch to talk about Clubbing Architecture.

Within the framework of the Master in Theory and History of Architecture at ETSAB, UPC, Miquel Ruiz’s TFM research, "Entre dos Mundos: fuentes e imaginarios del espacio como Membrana", received a Cum Laude and delves into the concerns of H3O’s practice.

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Published on: January 28, 2024
Cite: "The legend of lightning as a starting point. Relámpago House by H3o Architects" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/legend-lightning-a-starting-point-relampago-house-h3o-architects> ISSN 1139-6415
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