The tours also have three possible alternatives: the exterior through stairs and decks that access each of the platforms, drawing the silhouette of the house. A second is an access through the upper floor, to go inside the house, and a third that allows you to cross the house transversely taking advantage of the fact that it is detached from the ground.
The house is wrapped in a continuous skin of red-painted wood from which it gets its name. The construction is carried out using cross-laminated boards (CLT), lined in turn with wood, with supports made of steel micro piles. With a work carried out dry, with a high energy efficiency rating.
House in red by estudio_entresitio. Photograph by Roland Halbe.
Project description by estudio_entresitio
The project is located in Calas de Guisando, Cebreros, Ávila. A high degree of protection is applied to the parcel due to the ecological value of the swamp and its surrounding vegetation. The house in red arises from a clear intention to respect the landscape, the natural topography, and the existing vegetation, proposing a non-invasive architecture.
This architecture is governed by some key principles based on conserving the atmosphere of the original pine forest, trying to keep as many trees as possible so that the essence of the place, wild and natural, endures. This is how the idea of responding with palafittic architecture arose, on stilts driven into the ground, barely touching the ground. This architectural intention goes hand in hand with the pronounced topography of the plot, the access from its upper part and the height restrictions with respect to the original relief. In this way, upon arrival, the house is below, following the natural topography as if it were levitating above the ground. The difference in level between the access level of the plot and the water level of the reservoir is approximately 20 meters.
The relationship that this house establishes with the environment is one of permeability and potentiation, intertwining with the pine forest. The floor plan of the house is thus the direct consequence of two issues: the development of the program and full respect for the topography and the existing trees, growing and shortening between them. The connection between the entrance level and the access to the water is graduated in three intermediate levels in which the different members of the family find their private spaces that are easily connected both with the exterior and with the public space of the living room and the kitchen, located like a navel, between the level of the parents and that of the children.
House in red by estudio_entresitio. Photograph by Roland Halbe.
The circulations of the house are divided into three ways going through it or inhabiting it. One of them would start at street level, always going outside, through the roofs, with entrances on each platform and external stairs that connect the different platforms. An element that runs along this path drawing the silhouette of the house is the railing, almost imperceptible in the distance. Another way of going through it would begin by entering the house on the upper floor, where there are two stairs, just below the exterior ones, and which always go through the house from the inside.
Finally, there is another route that resides in the natural movement of the terrain, since as it is a house that levitates above the ground, it is possible to cross transversely through the exterior at certain points of the plan and access the level at others.
There are different appreciations of the geometry of the house. Working on a matrix with an orthogonal base, the project concatenates volumes of similar sizes at different heights. These volumes or boxes are read as such only from the exterior front, from the water. When the vision is foreshortened, the rigor of the volumes blurs. As you change from one level to another, you go from front views to side views thanks to the windows that run along the stairs.
House in red by estudio_entresitio. Photograph by Roland Halbe.
Spatially speaking, from the inside the rooms or air cells are connected to each other producing unexpected visions. This idea is reinforced by the decomposition of the boxes with the color planes. The result is an amalgamation in which the geometry is not clearly recognized.
In this house it is not possible to speak of four facades organized according to the orientation to the cardinal points; the resulting volume acquires quality thanks to its skin, which as such, envelops and protects the house. It is a continuous skin of red-painted wood that becomes permeable to capture light and vision when needed.
The construction of the different levels of the house is carried out using cross-laminated boards (CLT), as we have already said, lined with wood. The roof of each level is level with the floor of the previous one, that is, the same plane becomes the roof and the floor. The choice of this construction system is partly due to the idea of keeping nature as intact as possible; carrying out a dry work that did not have a large carbon footprint. This approach to sustainable housing has made it possible to achieve the highest energy efficiency rating.
