This project presents a displaced L-shaped floor plan that organizes the interior spaces and frees up the maximum exterior surface to accommodate a large porch and a swimming pool.
The house is located in Almargen, an inland village in the province of Málaga, Spain. It shares party walls with two other houses located on adjacent plots. The corner plot is flat and borders a cattle path, which has been successfully integrated into the plot.
The house is accessed through the main courtyard, passing under the threshold created by the overhang of the porch. Once inside, we are greeted with a pleasant frontal view of a small courtyard that serves as a light well, allowing natural light to illuminate the staircase and the bathroom.
As we keep walking, we see a double-height space emerging where the two volumes that form the house intersect. This space, bathed in soft skylight, characterizes and highlights the entrance to the main room of the house.
The living-dining-kitchen area, unified in a single space, opens to the west, where the porch and pool are located. The rooms on this floor are placed around two interior courtyards and a porch, maximizing natural light intake and enabling ventilation for each of the rooms.
The interior and exterior spaces of the house merge; the boundaries between them become blurred and the two spaces are integrated visually and functionally through the large windows that open up to the plot. The openings of the staircase and the double-height in the intermediate slab result in a section of solids and voids that makes up the open space dedicated to the common areas.
The staircase, located at the back of the main room, functions as a large piece of furniture that can house everyday domestic items. Facing the light-well courtyard, it frames it through a fixed window located on the landing. The pathways are placed around the double-height space on the upper floor, providing the corridors with skylight through the roof lantern.
This floor houses the bedrooms and a full bathroom. Two of the bedrooms have their own terrace. The one connected to the master bedroom is covered with large-format ultra-compact porcelain tiles in terracotta colour, which connects the house with its immediate surroundings.
The house is conceived as an abstract volume in which the upper floor shifts relative to the lower floor, creating an overhang of the upper body that floats and forms the porch. The displacement of this volume ensures that the ground-floor window is protected from direct solar radiation in the summer, functioning as an element that casts shade and improves the house's energy efficiency.
The uniformity of the upper floor façade is only broken by two elements: the terrace and the master bedroom’s window. Both elements are covered with the same materials of the façade to contribute to the intended uniformity.
The plot is enclosed by a fence made of white lacquered metal plates arranged at a forty-five-degree angle which allows for light and air to pass through while ensuring visual privacy from the street. The arrangement of the plates in this position creates a beautiful play of light and shadows depending on the sun's position throughout the day. Text description by the architects.
