A family made up of a married couple with three children commissioned us to project their future house on a plot on the outskirts of Madrid of more than 7000 m² occupied by a forest of pines and holm oaks. Preserving the trees on the plot becomes a fundamental premise when facing the project. The program is developed on a single floor due to preferences on the part of the property in this sense, and no justification was found for reasons of volumetry or possible views that would advise creating a second floor. This makes the house occupy the maximum area allowed by the regulations, which is why the need arises to break the building into three volumes in order to preserve the magnificent existing grove.

Under these premises, the house is developed on a single floor in permanent contact with the garden of holm oaks and pines through large windows and large porches. The extensive program is summarized in three areas: service, day rooms, and night rooms, and each one is assigned to a free-standing volume that resembles a cube and is linked to the rest by glass walkways.

These volumes are distributed in the area of the plot closest to the access and clearest trees, respecting the setbacks imposed by the regulations. In this way, the cube that houses the service program is oriented to the west, while those intended for day and night stays are oriented to noon and projecting. The implantation of these cubes in the forest has been carried out following a criterion of maximum respect for the existing grove. Each cube is perforated in its central part, forming a patio that will illuminate the interior rooms, also housing part of the grove.

An action to preserve the natural environment is presented here, in which a large single-family home is fragmented, drilled, and rotated to maintain the existing grove of trees. As a result of this operation, the pines and holm oaks enter each of the pieces that make up the house, creating a continuous dialogue between them. 

With this action, it is intended to improve the lives of the people who inhabit the house, so that they feel that they live in a forest, diluting the border between the interior and the exterior through large windows, landscaped patios, and opaque glass on the facades, creating a game of reflections between the interior and the exterior that produces the sensation of being inside and outside the house at the same time.

The materiality of the house is resolved by means of opaque glass that reflects the trunks of the trees, and whose reflections change over time and the seasons as if it were another living being on the plot.

Team:

Architects: Olalquiaga Arquitectos

Electrical & Mechanical Engineer: Grupo JG

Structural Engineer: Jorge Conde

Quantity Surveyor: Javier Rica

Photographer: Imagen subliminal 

Materials Used:

Facade cladding: Guardian (Opaque glass) 
Flooring: Sandstone 
Doors: Wood 
Windows: Cortizo
Roofing: Sandstone pebbles
Interior lighting & furniture:  Various