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Architects: Fran Silvestre Arquitectos
- Area: 400 m²
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Photographer:Fernando Guerra
Text description provided by the architects. Zahara de los Atunes is one of those places where the ordinary becomes exceptional. Every day has its sunrise and sunset, but the way this happens in this particular place is hard to describe.
With this starting point, the architecture is arranged almost like a mechanism that allows us to protect ourselves while capturing the spectacle that the surroundings offer us.
Since the terrain is sloped, the element appears as an architectural piece deposited in its environment. The place is prepared with a sort of base materialized in the gray tones of the stones found in the surroundings. In fact, the name Zahara comes from the Arabic "Sahara," which could be translated as "rocky place."
This base allows the house to be positioned at the necessary elevation to ensure views and the sunset over the sheet of water against the Atlantic. At the back, there is a tranquil patio to retreat to when the Tarifa wind is intense. This patio opens onto rooms with complementary uses to the main house. As if it were left to rest on this pedestal, the upper floor is divided into three spaces.
The central area is the daytime space, completely open between the northwest, where the magical sunset happens, and the southeast, with no structural elements interfering between this space and the landscape. On both sides are the nighttime areas with the same orientation. This arrangement balances the structure and provides privacy to the main bedroom.
A simple architecture embedded in a place where the sensitive observer can delight in all the colors.
