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Architects: Roman Izquierdo Bouldstridge
- Area: 94 m²
- Year: 2022
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Photographs:Adrià Goula
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Lead Architect: Roman Izquierdo Bouldstridge
Text description provided by the architects. This project involves the conversion of a space that formerly housed an office into a house for a couple. The space enjoys unique views of the Gava Mar Beach. A picture in continuous transformation, formed by pines that allow a glimpse of the sea between their trunks. The main concept of the project is to generate a natural interior landscape that is in harmony with the exterior environment. The horizon line draws the changing duality between the sky and the sea, so sensitively reflected in Hiroshi Sugimoto's work Seascapes. The design highlights this horizontality through a game of levels at different heights, giving rise to a succession of horizons inside the new house.
Levels: The project layout is solved through an open space that enhances the entry of natural light into the entire dwelling. The main challenge was to provide the experience of contemplating the landscape from all rooms, except the only one that is closed, the bathroom. The design conceives the changes in levels and heights as invisible boundaries that unify and separate the different rooms from each other. The flexibility of its uses, given its non-restrictive character, allows the design to adapt to the changing needs of the inhabitants. At the same time, a greater perception of spatial amplitude is achieved, emphasizing the almost 5 meters height ceilings. From the entrance, a deep view crosses the entire house to the sea.
A sculptural staircase gives access to the new mezzanine on two different levels, the study, and the bedroom. The third horizontal plane is also suspended between the two perimetral walls. It forms a long table that also prevents the users from falling to the lower floor. Descending a few steps from the entrance, the low-height kitchen and dining room compress the space vertically. In the place closest to the sea, the space is expanded again. The living room is conceived as a double-height interior garden, enlarging the small balcony in an environment full of light and nature.
Materiality: The design proposes two construction strategies that lead to a unitary language and a new space identity. The first provides maximum light to the house, by painting white the floor and concrete block walls. The second design strategy puts emphasis on the horizontal planes. Cross-laminated timber fir beams, together with the tongue-and-groove boards, contrast with the new abstract environment created. The choice of materials responds both to searching for an aesthetic and to achieving a sustainable intervention. Nature: The presence of an interior garden aims to expand the vegetation of the beach into a new interior natural atmosphere. In this way, the project is an opportunity to bring humans closer to our natural origin.
The vertical movement of the climbing plants draws a path of green leaves in the empty space. It is about the intrinsic beauty of imperfection and impermanence in time. The duality between living and dead matter; the irregular shapes of the pine’s trunks in contrast to the beams that once formed the fir trunks. A landscape between the organic and the abstract blurs the boundaries between the inside and outside. A new scenery full of calm and harmony, where the interaction of light plays a poetic role.
