This house overlooking the sea in southern Spain by MVN Architects comprises white
rectilinear volumes on a base of travertine marble.
Completed in 2007, AA house is
positioned on a hillside above the coastal city of Almería.
Glass doors slide open to
connect the living and dining room with a terrace and swimming pool, where
residents can watch the sun rise over the Mediterranean Sea.
All the work was focused on
developing project strategies that would enable to open the heart towards the
horizon. Rest in light, pick up the nuances of the sunrise and sunset. Be part
of a privileged viewpoint, where the inhabitants were permanently welcome.
Program of Needs and Previous
Conditionings
The site is located in Almeria,
municipality of Mojacar, in the surrounding area of Cerro del Albar. It is a
rugged topography, with steep and open distant horizon over the sea. On the
site there exists a small platform, which will be used as base for the
building. The project had to answer two questions raised by the client: One,
offer a solution that would allow feeling the horizon as part of the house.
Two, develop a housing program for a marriage with two children, according to
the following needs: garage and kitchen; lounge dining room and office-library;
main room, rooms for the children and guests; and a small sauna, workshop of
sculpture and painting, and court-warehouse for drying and storage of parts.
Setting Up Strategy
The housing places on an
existing platform oriented to the east, toward the Mediterranean Sea, in an
area with a steep slope. Given the rugged terrain, the general organization of
the project has been defined by the need to adapt in a rational way to the
topography, avoiding dismantle that might be excessive and so minimize the
impact that the building could suppose to the environment. The location of the
home taking advantage of the small natural platform, minimizes earth moving and
get a perfect adaptation of the architecture to the field. In lower levels,
other platforms continue structuring the plot, creating zones of fruit-bearing
trees and garden. Some of these platforms use existing stone walls in the plot,
remains of ancient terraced plantations, thus recovering the character that had
long ago the area. In this sense, the project maintains a constant relation
with the environment, promoting the transition of scales and protecting the
landscape value of the area.
Opening Strategy
The housing is organized into
three bands that are displaced longitudinally: The services band, partially
buried, anchoring the house on the slope. It organises the uncovered parking,
court of service, pantry and kitchen, the latter with a small terrace. The
central band receives the main elements of the house. On having been delayed
with respect to the other two, it sets up a large patio where is proposed the
access, protected behind the fold of the walls. Once inside, a small patio
glass distributes the routes, introducing a diffuse light sifted by vegetation.
The main double-height space articulates the relationship between the light and
the horizon. Dining and living room establish a strong link with the sea,
opening fully on a first platform that starts the dialog with the environment.
This space is bounded by the dressing room and the main bedroom, which
configure a cantilevered body over the visual flight of the landscape, again
toward the coast line.
The third band is the closure of the housing and its main facade. It includes rooms for the children, the guest room, the sauna, and the space for sculpture and painting, with a courtyard protected from the wind. A somewhat lower terrace provides an open space at noon, resolving the encounter with the ground.
In wet rooms and kitchen it is
used compound of quartz and resins type Silestone to run tiled pavements. The
interior woodwork is white pre-lacquered MDF. The external joinery is composed
of triple aluminium clad: the outer element is a sliding structure of
adjustable slats; intermediate carpentry, a Climalit glass enclosure; and the
inner element, a sliding mesh anti-insect. At the opening of the lounge toward
the horizon, there are provided two spaces where fully collect the woodwork. On
the outdoor spaces, surfaces that do not constitute open platforms to the
horizon have been finished off with crushed aggregate of rocks from the area.
The earth retaining runs through wall of riprap, selecting rocks of the area
that will allow the integration of the project on the environment.
Situation: Era del Albar,
Mojacar, Almeria. Spain
Date of project: 2004-2006
Date of work: 2006-2007
Architects: Daniel H Nadal, Diego Varela, Emilio Medina
Technical Architect: Maria Isabel García Mellado
Promoter / owner: Private
Construction company: AJCC Constructions
Total budget: 400,000 Euros
Constructed area: 285 m2
Cost material execution: 1,140 €/m2
Financing; Private
Completed in 2007, AA house is
positioned on a hillside above the coastal city of Almería.
Glass doors slide open to
connect the living and dining room with a terrace and swimming pool, where
residents can watch the sun rise over the Mediterranean Sea.
Bedrooms line the southern
facade, alongside a sauna and an artists’ studio.
Here’s some more information
from MVN Architects:
The AA Home project arose from
the need to build a site able to create a meaningful place. “So the house does
not destroy this sense of peace that I had the first time I looked at the
horizon from this hill, and to protect it” they asked us.
All the work was focused on
developing project strategies that would enable to open the heart towards the
horizon. Rest in light, pick up the nuances of the sunrise and sunset. Be part
of a privileged viewpoint, where the inhabitants were permanently welcome.
And so was sought to ensure
that the limit of the house was the horizon, a boundary that does not want to
confine, but permanent opening.
A house seeking shelter and
protection, quiet at last. And so it calls at all times to the heart without
forcing any door, without opening them, without crossing thresholds, to
experience the peace of the horizon made of sea, of wind, of rock, the horizon
made architecture for many years.
Program of Needs and Previous
ConditioningsThe site is located in Almeria,
municipality of Mojacar, in the surrounding area of Cerro del Albar. It is a
rugged topography, with steep and open distant horizon over the sea. On the
site there exists a small platform, which will be used as base for the
building. The project had to answer two questions raised by the client: One,
offer a solution that would allow feeling the horizon as part of the house.
Two, develop a housing program for a marriage with two children, according to
the following needs: garage and kitchen; lounge dining room and office-library;
main room, rooms for the children and guests; and a small sauna, workshop of
sculpture and painting, and court-warehouse for drying and storage of parts.
Setting Up Strategy
The housing places on an
existing platform oriented to the east, toward the Mediterranean Sea, in an
area with a steep slope. Given the rugged terrain, the general organization of
the project has been defined by the need to adapt in a rational way to the
topography, avoiding dismantle that might be excessive and so minimize the
impact that the building could suppose to the environment. The location of the
home taking advantage of the small natural platform, minimizes earth moving and
get a perfect adaptation of the architecture to the field. In lower levels,
other platforms continue structuring the plot, creating zones of fruit-bearing
trees and garden. Some of these platforms use existing stone walls in the plot,
remains of ancient terraced plantations, thus recovering the character that had
long ago the area. In this sense, the project maintains a constant relation
with the environment, promoting the transition of scales and protecting the
landscape value of the area.
Opening Strategy
The housing is organized into
three bands that are displaced longitudinally: The services band, partially
buried, anchoring the house on the slope. It organises the uncovered parking,
court of service, pantry and kitchen, the latter with a small terrace. The
central band receives the main elements of the house. On having been delayed
with respect to the other two, it sets up a large patio where is proposed the
access, protected behind the fold of the walls. Once inside, a small patio
glass distributes the routes, introducing a diffuse light sifted by vegetation.
The main double-height space articulates the relationship between the light and
the horizon. Dining and living room establish a strong link with the sea,
opening fully on a first platform that starts the dialog with the environment.
This space is bounded by the dressing room and the main bedroom, which
configure a cantilevered body over the visual flight of the landscape, again
toward the coast line. 
The third band is the closure of the housing and its main facade. It includes rooms for the children, the guest room, the sauna, and the space for sculpture and painting, with a courtyard protected from the wind. A somewhat lower terrace provides an open space at noon, resolving the encounter with the ground.
Constructive Strategy
The whole set is proposed as
structural system of reinforced concrete, with Thermo-clay closure and solution
of ecological flat roof supported by slab Filtron base. It is projected to
finished with white monolayer mortar (with contribution of 10% of ochre)
according to the architecture built in the area of influence of the Cerro del
Albar. The pavement is solved with travertine marble, extending this finish to
the outside to run ground platforms linked to the use of housing.
In wet rooms and kitchen it is
used compound of quartz and resins type Silestone to run tiled pavements. The
interior woodwork is white pre-lacquered MDF. The external joinery is composed
of triple aluminium clad: the outer element is a sliding structure of
adjustable slats; intermediate carpentry, a Climalit glass enclosure; and the
inner element, a sliding mesh anti-insect. At the opening of the lounge toward
the horizon, there are provided two spaces where fully collect the woodwork. On
the outdoor spaces, surfaces that do not constitute open platforms to the
horizon have been finished off with crushed aggregate of rocks from the area.
The earth retaining runs through wall of riprap, selecting rocks of the area
that will allow the integration of the project on the environment.
Situation: Era del Albar,
Mojacar, Almeria. SpainDate of project: 2004-2006
Date of work: 2006-2007
Architects: Daniel H Nadal, Diego Varela, Emilio Medina
Technical Architect: Maria Isabel García Mellado
Promoter / owner: Private
Construction company: AJCC Constructions
Total budget: 400,000 EurosConstructed area: 285 m2
Cost material execution: 1,140 €/m2
Financing; Private
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