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Architects: GMO Arquitectura
- Area: 113 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:DEL RIO BANI
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Manufacturers: AutoDesk, Velux
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Lead Architect: Alex Garcia Gispert
“Caseta de las Brugueras” refurbishment is a Project to rehabilitate a listed small Catalan country house or “Mas”, to turn it into a small refuge for short-term vacation breaks.
The “Mas” is located in Priorat, an area of volcanic origin, a region with a rough and wild appearance, with landscapes of impressive luminosity. The building, settled in this same environment, retains the essence of the region; the silence and tranquility with maximum respect for the pre-existing construction and in close contact with the environment.
The building consists of two adjacent naves at different levels from different periods, adapted to the terrain’s topography.
The project’s primary purpose consisted in giving value to the existing construction; that is to say, differentiate the architectural intervention from the pre-existing “Mas”.
One of the most important client’s requirements at the program level was to provide the house with a double space where the dining-living would be located. To solve the circulation between this space and the upper floor, we made a walkway to allow the light reach the lower floor.
As it is a catalogued facade, we opened just the necessary windows to guarantee a minimum of ventilation in the different rooms of the project. To maximize the entry of light, we have put Velux type windows.
The actions on the structure involved reinforcing the existing slab through a compression layer with connectors in the existing wooden beams and raising the level of the roof with a perimeter ring beam that improves the “tying” with the existing structure.
To build the roof, we have recovered the wooden beams and more than 50% of the original roof tiles. At the same time, a lot of isolation thickness was gained to improve the thermal conditions inside.
Another challenge we encountered was that the building didn’t have a connection to the electricity network; therefore we placed photovoltaic panels with batteries that accumulate the energy that the house needs.
