This Wooden Tower is a Space for Grooming, Contemplation and Delicacy

Designed as a collaboration between Norwegian studio Gartnerfuglen and Spanish architect Mariana de Delás, the Grooming Retreat was the “dream” request of a woman who had recently moved back to her hometown in the south of the Spanish island.

Description by Mariana de Delás: Located on a remote agricultural state in southern Mallorca, this structure was the realisation of a dream for the client. Being an urbanite young professional who decided to move back to her hometown to run the family agricultural legacy she asked for a space for grooming, contemplation and delicacy. Sited at the center of a barley field sur-rounded by autochthonous bushes and wild olive trees the wooden tower has a panoramic view meeting the Mediterranean sea and senses at the horizon the lush island of Cabrera.

The retreat is envisioned as a solemn refuge in where personal-cleansing is acclaimed. Learning from the animal’s benefits from their act of social grooming and focusing mainly on the importance of the cleansing ritual preformed to a horse (before and after riding it), the project intends to regain back the time devoted to one self that modern times has taken away. The conception of a space to take a break from the multitasking contemporary madness by implementing a fortress like structure in where cleansing and individual mental and body hygiene becomes the priority.

A man made sanctuary that does not prioritize to shelter from the environment but rather aims to refuge the urbanite from the social order to remind and applause the condi-tions of our indigenous surroundings.
Water and breeze conjointly with books and music to reclaim the time we owe ourselves. Mirrors and phenomena to reconnect our minds to our shell.

Conceived as a grooming retreat for one person, the wooden tower has a minimal 3×3 footprint providing serenity. The structure, made by local timber frames, elevates the cocoon to have exclusive views whilst giving a sense of translucent privacy to the user. Layers of white mosquito netting frames are interlaced throughout the interior to grant differ-ent opacities for each specific use. To the west, a water tank and a horse station are meticulously connected to the tower by a timber boardwalk, which arises the ritual spirit of the formality of cleansing.

For animals, self or social grooming does not only improve their hygiene but its also said that they gain self-confidence, sexual appeal and reduce stress, we believe that by joining corporal self-grooming with beauty, simpleness and ritual we can achieve the same benefits for the modern being.

Project: Grooming Retreat / wooden tower
Architects: Gartnerfuglen and Mariana de Delás
Collaborators: Marie Monsen, Julie Hauge, Suchi Vora, Martin Plante, Nataliya Kuznetsova Chief Carpenters: Sindre Sahlqvist Blakar, Eirik Stormo
Location: Santanyi, Mallorca, Spain
Images courtesy of Gartnerfuglen & Mariana de Delás