The starting point for this project are four stone walls within a medieval village; three of those are party walls and the fourth one, towards the north, faces a street. One of them encloses us “intra moenia”: it was the defensive wall that protected the village for centuries with its embrasures and the boldness of its mass.
Respecting the materials and the heritage hidden between its stones, the intervention aims at opening the house, refocusing it and providing it with 4 elevations. A patio is thus created articulating spaces around it. The small dimensions of the house, together with the steep gradient of the street, led us to create a house on intermediate levels with an open room in each one of them linked by a staircase running between the street facade and the patio.
When we open the dark access door we find a background of light framed by a window, it is the entrance hall, its furniture hides the guest room and the bathroom. We leave the stairs leading to the pool area and continue up to the kitchen with the back wall and the large open window to the courtyard inviting us to go up to the living room. Going up another section and through the walkway we reach the master bedroom defined by a volume of wood.
The stone walls are cleaned, preserving all the textures, irregularities and history. Looking for integration with the materials of the area and following the constructive logic of the environment, the new walls that enclose the courtyard are whitewashed with the same technique that was used in the past. The interior partitions as such do not exist, but furniture is drawn that contains part of the program, with saw-cut wood and painted.
Materials used:
- Facade cladding: The existing stone
- Flooring: Oak wood and microcement
- Doors: Raw oak wood
- Windows: Oak wood
- Roofing: Oak wood
- Interior furniture: Oak wood and steel designed by us
