Project: Mediterranean Beach House
Architects: Laura Ortín Arquitectura
Location: Torre de la Horadada, Spain
Area: 90.0 m2
Project Year 2017
Photography: David Frutos
Located in the Mediterranean coast, this property is the result of the family need to expand the holiday residence. We are placed in a coastal town, once a fishermen’s village that, with the arrival of tourists, it has become a tourist destination where to spend one’s holidays.
The project takes up the flat cover of the house below. This can be found in a sequence of row blocks which once were identical, making up a simple urbanization of “beach houses”. Today, the same that once happened to the fishermen’s dwellings has happened here. There is no sign of what they used to be.
The area’s planning does not imply other architectural resources beyond the urban restraints regarding height, occupancy and boundaries. That is why the neighbors have been building their house’s covers in a spontaneous and unique fashion. Generally, they have expanded upon the aesthetic of the first floor, which in the majority of the cases was previously modified, so the result is one of an out of control and no-turning back eclecticism.
The proposal suggests a new code, a sort of aesthetic and functional disobedience which, in this specific context, is aligned with a provocative vision of a necessary breach.
A volatile architecture is suggested. One which is integrated in the celestial scenery, which is fused with the light-blue sky. An easy and simple extension, so that its execution is agile and its interpretation, immediate. Elemental finishes so the costs are reduced. In a nutshell, an architecture in line with our time and our resources.
The light volume rotates away from the alignment (and alienation) so as to look out to the watchtower, symbol of the town and whose orientation is the ideal one in this East Coast. It is built with a metallic structure supported on the load-bearing walls of the house below and the SATE system is used in the façade, whose color is inspired in the wind power’s turbines. Celestial camouflage and lightness.
Within few meters a complete, comfortable and ample house is accomplished. It has a large interior volume in a vertical line which expands the views of the attic and modulates them thermally. The rooms flow towards the outside thanks to two terraces of constant use. Certain materials in disuse are retrieved, such as the terrazzo for the floors- designed by the studio- and the ceiling’s wood, phenolic boards for stuff packaging from maritime containers. Materials which turn out attractive and unique in this space.
This Mediterranean beach house is fresh, cozy and illuminated, essential qualities to rest and disconnect during holidays.
