«Las Negras» is a small town in Níjar, Almeria (Spain), with fishing tradition. The settlement is situated betwen a cape called «El Puntón» and the «Cerro Negro» (black mountain) cliff: emblem, icon and, surely, town´s origin.
The Gallarda House, is a holiday residence that, probably, it will end up becoming the permanent residence of a young couple with an intense social life. It is a house of ample dimensions in its public area —living and dining room— and it is always connected with the outdoor area: terraced plot, where it will be planted pine tree, as much as the pool deck. Therefore, it proposed a life of simple acts, without sacrifice the daily pleasures: water a plants, sit to read under a tree or dive into the water. The Mediterranean architecture was always that simple white frame, sometimes invisible which man comes to happiness almost without realizing it.
The Gallarda house are three houses. C1. The transparent house. It is made of glass and it is shaded. It is the place to be. It is lived participating of the landscape and the sea. This house extends to the pool deck; also to the garden. The Gallarda house extends to the sea. C2. The hole house. It is a house of service. It is concrete material and belongs to the Earth. C3. The white house. It is lime, opaque and air. It is close to heaven: there only to sleep and dream
LANDSCAPE.
No doubt: the landscape is more intense, when between us and him there is an object. The work of Richard Long as much as the drawing of Mies Van der Rohe for the Resor House insists on that idea. Gallarda House doesn´t give up the structure. In the same way, the Nike temple on the Acropolis or Luigi Figini with his Italian home, shows the column as a success.
TOPOGRAPHY.
The Gallarda House is situated on top of the plot, in the place where the views of the Mediterranean Sea, the village of Las Negras and Cerro Black are sharper. Thus, on the one hand the volume of the house is oriented looking for the best views; and on the other, settling in its larger side to the topography. Gallarda House gives an austere, effective and definitive answer to the "place"; as well as the programmatic client requests. UNDERGROUND.
The Gallarda house is heir to a tradition of Mediterranean houses: whitewashed volumes white whose windows-either are protected from direct radiation of the sun due to their small size or their setback, avoiding the annoying greenhouse effect that happens when direct sun light on the glass surfaces. The Mediterranean tradition requires semi-buried houses, therefore fresh.
