ArchShowcase 
Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. House in the Cerdanya by dom arquitecturaOctober 11th, 2018 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: dom arquitectura The land is located in Cerdanya, in an old village that began to be rehabilitated 15 years ago and which currently consists of 5 houses. The plot is surrounded by an environment of privileged nature with fantastic views of the natural park of Cadí and the Valley of the Cerdanya. The project is conditioned by a strict regulation of the area, which forces to build with the traditional exterior materials of the stone of the area and inclined roof of manual ceramic tile. The ceretana house intends, then, to integrate itself in the place and in the houses of the existing town, using its same materials and basic elements of the construction of the place: the stone facade, the tile roof, the era or garden, the porches and the access through the ceretana door. It was an important challenge for us to build a house with such traditional elements, but at the same time to make it current, with a cozy atmosphere.  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera
 Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera In the first place, we made the decision to build the house with a wooden structure, facing the project from a bioclimatic strategy, to achieve an efficient and sustainable house. Using this constructive system we also reduce construction waste. Therefore, the project already had 3 different materials for its construction. The ceramic stone and tile, due to normative constraints, and wood as a structural material. One of the objectives was to try to solve almost all the elements of the house with these 3 materials. To these three materials, iron is added, a material with which encounters are resolved and luminaires are designed that provide order and singularity in the interior details. The land has an important slope of 20%. The intention was to build the house on one floor, to participate to the maximum of the garden. We proposed to make the access to the house at street level, having only the hall and the garage at that level, and locate the rest of the house at a height of 2.6m below the street. Decision that involved us to bury part of the house, thus integrating the topography of the land.  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera The almost square plot facing southeast, allows us to generate an L-shaped plant, with two perpendicular wings, which rest on the boundaries of the plot and generate: the day area, with the main rooms and the night with the bedrooms. The stone wall protrudes slightly from the roofs and further emphasizes these simple shapes predetermined by the plot, draws a series of slopes and contrapendientes, endowing the house with a unique geometry. The slopes of the roofs of the two wings of the house, converge towards the era, creating a continuous overhang around the house, and a large covered porch at one end. The volume of nexus between the two wings, has two floors, and is the only one that has the slope of the roof to the outside, also generating a porch for access to the house.  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera The entire stone-clad floor of the facade has two gaps, one in the area of the rooms and another in the porch area, these setbacks are covered with exterior wood, a material that arises when removing the stone, giving us to understand the importance of wood as the main material in the construction of the house. The same happens in the access from the street on the first floor, where the setback is covered with wood, with respect to the volume of stone. In the traditional and rural architecture, the houses were closed to the outside, they wanted to protect themselves, they did not need to see the surroundings where they had been working all day. This house is located in a rural environment, is closed to the street and the neighbor, north, but intends, on the contrary, open to the era and the garden, enjoying the borrowed landscape that nature offers from any indoor room.  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera The primitive fact and the tradition of gathering around the fire, as a moment of family recollection, was a concept that we wanted to maintain. The large open space of the day area generates rooms semi-collected, through furniture, embracing the spaces and forming more cozy areas typical of the mountain. The sofa around the fire, the bench, the table, the cooking island, mark the rhythm of the different rooms within a visually continuous space. The main entrance of the house is at street level. Following the path to the ground floor we find two windows that frame the views of the valley and the mountains of the natural park of Cadi.  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera The L-shaped ground floor consists of two clearly differentiated wings, the day area fully open and facing southeast, and the more compartmentalized night area, oriented southwest. Between one and the other there is a vertical drop of 55cm that allows us to better adapt the shape of the house to the land of the plot. The access corridor to the rooms is a narrow and high space, where a large skylight is raised that floods the room with natural light, giving life to a residual space. The wall of the corridor when buried, is treated with natural clays that help us control the humidity in this space.  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera 3 identical bedrooms are planned, designed for the 3 children of the family. But currently two of the rooms are unified, to generate a large room for children, so, now that they are small, have a large space to play and can sleep together. The other room is for guests and the main room is located at the end of the wing. The toilets are incorporated into the bedrooms, leaving the shower with the toilet as the only closed part. Being touching the facade, that space has natural light and ventilation, and from the shower you can contemplate the views of the mountains. In the main room in addition to the volume of toilet and shower, also contains the bathtub with a lower window with the same purpose of being able to enjoy nature.  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera The wooden structure and the fact of making a house so isolated, forced us to take into account issues such as waterproofing, breathability and air renewal, which was achieved by a system of a double flow heat recovery. This system allows the house to breathe and guarantees the salubrity of indoor air continuously. Wood is the protagonist of the interior, the walls and ceilings throughout the house are covered with fir wood panels, the floor is a floating parquet of natural oak, a tone similar to the rest of wood. The exterior carpentries are also made of pine wood with a matt varnish, all in the same tones. The interior distribution walls of pharmacel are painted with an ecological and breathable paint.  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera The structure of walls and roof of the house is also made of pine wood. Therefore, practically with only one material, treated in different ways, a large part of the interior solutions and finishes is solved. The wood outside is black pine. The rest of the materials are the stone on the facade, the roof tile and finally the iron as another polyvalent material, which allows us to detail the finishes better: on the outside it is used for the window frames and roof gutters, and inside to form luminaires, chimney, stairs and other auctions. Concrete is only used for the foundation and containment of land.  Image Courtesy © Jordi Anguera  Image Courtesy © dom arquitectura  Image Courtesy © dom arquitectura  Image Courtesy © dom arquitectura  Image Courtesy © dom arquitectura  Image Courtesy © dom arquitectura  Image Courtesy © dom arquitectura  Image Courtesy © dom arquitectura
Contact dom arquitectura
Tags: Cerdanya Categories: House, Residential, Villa |
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|||||
email
Facebook
Twitter
RSS Feed
