Archello Awards 2026 · Enter your projects before 30 September 2026
Archello Awards 2026 · Enter your projects before 30 September 2026
Casa 1931
Xavi Juanola

Casa 1931

The 1931 house is a house located in the heart of the Empordà. Between fields of apple trees and pine groves, the project aims to blur the boundary between the house and its immediate exterior, and to incorporate the landscape into its interior.

photo_credit Xavi Juanola
Xavi Juanola
photo_credit Xavi Juanola
Xavi Juanola

The building is laid out in a Z shape, dividing the plot into two large gardens, one oriented to the south, which will capture as much sun as possible, and the other to the north, incorporating the pine forest inside the house. In this way, the main living space is located in the middle, becoming the gravitational center around which the rest of the built spaces and outdoor spaces orbit.

photo_credit Xavi Juanola
Xavi Juanola
photo_credit Xavi Juanola
Xavi Juanola

The east bar is intended for services, as well as housing access and vertical communications. Above this we find the night area made up of three rooms. The west bar is intended for the main room and a second living room, more collected but with a significant interior height, which is connected through a patio and is related to a study. Between these two bars is the day area made up of a dining room and living room, which through large openings relates to the immediate and distant exterior space, and is surrounded by landscape.

photo_credit Xavi Juanola
Xavi Juanola
Caption

The materiality of the proposal is resolved based on the duality between the supporting element and the covering element. The first is materialized with blocks of compacted earth (which its apparatus shows is not used as a structural element), while the second is represented with reinforced concrete. These two materials make up the facades and are arranged as a series of horizontal layers that define the composition of the building's volumes. This system of strata allows us to integrate the openings between the covering elements, and they are integrated through the use of lattices in order to provide light and natural ventilation to the interior spaces but at the same time protect them from the view from the street, porticos of wooden slats for solar protection of the openings that require it, as well as for the access portals and glass openings.

photo_credit Xavi Juanola
Xavi Juanola
Caption

In order to emphasize the relationship with the outside, the materials used on the outside go inside, and the materials used on the inside go outside. The carpentry system is integrated into the walls to make them disappear, managing to lose the perception of the boundary between inside and outside, turning the heart of the home into an outdoor space.

Caption
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