2017

GRANADA, SPAIN

The house is located in the Vega de Granada, the 750 m2 plot belongs to an urban plan that allows the construction of two-story single-family homes with the idea of leaving free space for a garden and pool.
However, the house had to be fully accessible and therefore developed on a single floor. This condition implied doubling the occupancy on the ground floor, which left very little free exterior space between the home and boundaries.
Given this situation, we asked ourselves if it was possible to design a fully accessible, one-story home, with half occupancy – maintaining the scheme of the neighboring homes.
This is the starting point of the project, which results in a house composed of «two halves» of similar proportions and different nature. One at night, massive and private, located in the most protected part of the plot. Another during the day, completely open to the outside space. Both come together to create a U-shaped house open to the south, where the exterior half is introduced into the interior, while the interior is projected onto the exterior by means of a 5.35m parallelepiped glass by 9.30m covered by a large lightened reinforced concrete cantilever measuring 9.00 x 16.00 m.

The structural system chosen is a reinforced concrete made light by extruded polystyrene blocks. This construction technique contributes to achieving a great  sensation of lightness thorugh a cantilever porch.
The house can be interpreted as a large room that gradually opens to the patio, where the wall becomes the true limit of the house, seeking to maximize margin of freedom and mobility. A transition that goes from the intimacy of the bedrooms, through the semi-private space of the dining room that ends in the living room and the pool. A single space that is many at the same time due to its constant transformation, the result of the multiple shades of light and shadows that it tolerates daily. A place inspired by the Nasrid palaces of the Alhambra and, specifically, by the complicity of the relationship between its halls and patios.