Farmer House is the renovation and extension of a traditional rural house in Tenerife’s southern mid-altitude zone. Designed by FiveOHFive for a family of three, the project is located in Las Zocas, within the municipality of San Miguel de Abona. An existing family-owned structure on the site was originally built to support agricultural work.
The house belongs to a typology of single-story dwellings that shaped the landscape of homes and cultivated plots in this mid-altitude zone, where families settled in close relationship with their fields. Its restoration preserves a building with local ethnographic significance.
Around the 1940s, the arrival of water through canals and channels supplied from galleries in the island’s highlands transformed agricultural production, supporting crops such as potatoes. The fields were also covered with a white volcanic material known as “jable,” which helped retain water for cultivation.
Restoring the existing structure
The project converts the old structure—originally a tool shed—into a secondary residence close to the family home. A new extension complements the renovation and completes the required program.
The new house contains a primary bedroom, a child’s bedroom, a bathroom, and a connecting space designed to be as open and light-filled as possible, with views toward the landscape.
Retaining the existing house forms the project’s principal low-impact strategy. Rather than replacing the original structure, the intervention preserves its embodied carbon and extends its service life through restoration. The new construction is compact and carefully positioned, limiting the amount of additional building required. The approach combines adaptive reuse with minimal new construction.
To address the requirements for the new house, three options were developed with different positions on the site and, consequently, different relationships to the existing structure. In each case, the extension was conceived as a contemporary addition clearly distinct from the original house, with emphasis placed on the spatial connection between the two buildings and the sheltered outdoor space created between them.
The new volume follows the street alignment and is positioned at a right angle to the existing house, acting as a thickening of the wall that defines the plot boundary. It turns away from the street, maintaining continuity with the surrounding built fabric, while opening toward the ravine and distant views. A platform between the existing house and the excavated area creates a sheltered outdoor space between the two structures. The upward slope of El Pilón Street keeps the extension largely concealed, allowing the original house to retain its prominence.
Passive performance and material reuse
The environmental strategy extends to the materials and construction of the new volume. Wide load-bearing walls provide thermal inertia, helping moderate indoor temperatures and reduce demand for mechanical heating and cooling. The walls combine concrete with large pieces of piedra de jable, a local stone already present on the site. Reusing this material reduces demand for newly sourced stone, transportation impacts, and material waste.
Existing elements of the original house were also retained where possible. The clay roof tiles were carefully salvaged and reused on the pitched roof, preserving their embodied carbon while reducing construction waste.
Large glazed openings balance views with solar control. Custom timber windows made by local carpenters incorporate double glazing with SunGuard solar-control glass, while external awnings provide seasonal shading and limit direct solar gain during hotter periods.
Renewable energy and water management
Ten photovoltaic panels generate renewable electricity on site, reducing demand for grid-supplied electricity and associated operational emissions.
Water management also builds on the site’s existing agricultural infrastructure. The new pool collects water from the historic atarjeas, traditional irrigation channels associated with the surrounding cultivated landscape. Their reuse limits the need for additional water infrastructure while maintaining a connection to the site’s agricultural history.
Designing for future use
Adaptability is incorporated into the extension. The elevated structure creates a covered area beneath that currently functions as agricultural storage. Plumbing and provisions for a bathroom were installed during construction, allowing the space to be enclosed and converted into additional accommodation in the future with limited intervention. This provides capacity for future adaptation without requiring substantial additional construction.
