We were commissioned to transform a set of ruins into a comfortable house, and instructed to take advantage of the floors, carpentry, marble and cupboards, salvaged from the demolition of a house by the sea. The property had access to well water; living in the desert of Almería has never been easy, but it can still be very pleasant.
A modular solution was employed, featuring simple geometry as a support and counterpoint to the organic forms of the vegetation and everyday objects.
We rebuilt the main structure with the stone from the ruins, thus maintaining the thick masonry walls, whose high thermal inertia is ideal in this extreme desert climate. On the rest of the project constructive solutions were chosen that could be carried out by small local building companies.
We added a large porch, whose modules could be covered with vines, reed matting, or sandwich panels as buffers against the wind and searing temperatures, as well as to generate areas with different types of light, air and warmth.
