AD Villa

Location: Lleida, Catalonia, Spain

Client: Private

Material: Concrete & Metal

Completion date: 2021

Site area: 902m²

Built area: 450m²

Author: Estudi Alfred Garcia Gotós & BR29 Arquitectes

Architect: Àngela Escolà

Mechanical engineering: Joan Olivar + David Borda

Interior Design: Estudi Alfred Garcia Gotós, Sandra Guerrero

Construction: DMC Construcciones

Photographer: Fernando Alda

Story:

Text provided by the architects:

A clear rationalist arrangement, the architectural style also known as the Modern Movement and considered as the main architectural trend of the first half of the twentieth century, defines this detached house in Lleida.

Alfred García Gotós and BR29 Arquitectes joint to develop a design, which, through enveloping spaces and simple and functional lines, based on simple geometric shapes and natural materials, seeks to optimize the well-being of its inhabitants.

The clients ask us for a house with a very large program. It includes a living area with the kitchen not completely open, but neither independent, and that we solved with a 3,5 meters sliding door that opens over the wall of the lobby. Next to the kitchen can be found the access to the basement composed by the garage, a party zone and also the facilities of the house. The night area is composed by five bedrooms and a multifunctional pavilion next to the pool to be used as a gym or as a guest house.

Distributed in three heights and supported on a smallholding of 902 m² with a slight slope, the house is protected behind a simple broken brick masonry wall that “hides” the two entrances. The main one, and pedestrian, located at the highest level of the land, gives access to the highest volume. On the other hand, the vehicular one, at the opposite end of the fence, directs to the basement and to the dwelling’s plinth.

Attached to the first volume and barely visible from the street is placed a single-height piece that runs longitudinally along the garden, ended by a complementary volume to the outside area, which the gym or the guest pavilion.

“The interior spaces are designed considering bioclimatic and functional composition criteria”, explain the authors, who have chosen to locate the living area to the southwest of the ground floor, with a generous double-height living-dining room and a kitchen dominated by an island that extends in the form of a dining table. “The living area is doubtlessly one of the most distinguished and unique spaces of the project”, they pointed out. A spacious and very bright place, crossed by a stair that provides majesty to the interior. Located next to the entrance, and marking out the area reserved to the hall, it gives access to the gallery that leads to the two bedrooms on the first floor, reserved for guests. The rest of the private rooms- two children’s rooms that share a bathroom and the master suite, with a large dressing room and an integrated bathroom – are located in the single-height volume that occupies the northeast area of the house. Between the dining table and the night area, a discreet stair, perpendicular to the main one, leads to the basement.

According to the clear design and simple geometry of the project, the interior opts for three unique materials, warm and timeless: oak wood for flooring, space partitions and coatings; porcelain tile in wet areas; and smoked glass with grey double butyral in translucent inner partitions. Although if one stands out, it is the natural oak wood, which in the form of an enveloping skin covers almost the entire house. With the incidence of natural light, this not only provides warmth, visual serenity and comfort to all rooms. It but also plays with the full and empty, hiding and opening lighting holes to all the rooms and corridors, and thus create different shadow textures and changing architectural characters.

An example of that is the element that protects the gallery of the first floor, with openings on both sides and that is used as a functional and aesthetic shelf. The connectivity between the different rooms is also transferred to the relationship between interior and exterior, which blurs the limits through large openings towards the garden, visually integrating the pool with the rest of the house.