Designed by Anna & Eugeni Bach, the House in Fonolleres features a large porch that extends indoor functions to the outside, creating a covered area over the pool, alongside a barbecue and a circular shaded structure. The study and library are located on the ground floor, while the master bedroom occupies the upper floor. These two areas are connected by a triangular double-height space situated behind the bed, which incorporates a small "studiolo."
The independence of the autonomous elements is expressed through the use of natural materials—wood and ceramics—and through their formal configuration, while the whole maintains a unified material language. The render of the main volume dialogues with the wood and ceramics, recovering the characteristic tone of the local architecture.
House in Fonolleres by Anna & Eugeni Bach. Photograph by Eugeni Bach.
Project description by Anna & Eugeni Bach
Fonolleres is a small village of barely 30 inhabitants, located on the plain of the Ter River, in the heart of the Empordà. Its origins go back to a small 12th-century fortification. Surrounded by fruit orchards, this cluster, with no more than 50 houses, stands out for the uniformity of its materials, with a characteristic ochre tone derived from local stone and ceramics.
In this context, the project proposes the renovation and extension of a house built in the early 2000s, located on a plot at the village perimeter. The intervention preserves part of the original house and expands it through a strategy based on independent additions. Just as the village houses reveal, through their volumes, the extensions and transformations accumulated over time, the project adopts this same logic: a main volume to which autonomous pieces are added to fulfill specific functions such as the porch, the entrance, the barbecue, and the pergola.
The independence of each element is reinforced both by the use of natural materials—wood and ceramics—and by their formal design: the porch consists of seven porticoes that extend over the existing pool, the barbecue is conceived as a triangular volume tangent to the façade, the entrance slides over the main body, and the pergola takes the shape of a separate circle seeking shade.
Opposed to this autonomy is a unified language: the plaster finish of the main volume mediates with the color of the wood and ceramics, fired in a wood oven to achieve the characteristic tone of the village’s materiality.
The result is a house that offers the possibility of inhabiting its various spaces, both indoors and outdoors, working with different types of shade (a sign of comfort in a Mediterranean climate) in search of thermal delight.
The main porch offers extensive shade and large shelter, bringing all the interior functions outdoors. By extending over the pool, it provides an unexpected and uncommon place to stay sheltered with your feet in the water, reading a good book on a summer afternoon. The barbecue, due to its shape, height, and location, offers shade at midday, a time when it is typically used to prepare meals. The circular pergola serves as the base for plant shade covering the outdoor kitchen table, a spot for breakfast in the morning sheltered by a façade opposite the morning sun, while the terrace circular canopies create spot shading for each of the upstairs bedrooms and become lamps at night, a place to go out and enjoy the evening coolness.
Inside, the extension of the main volume houses the study and library on the ground floor and the main bedroom upstairs. These spaces, more private in use, specifically respond to the owner’s main pleasures: music and reading. In response to these, both rooms are connected by a double-height triangular space, curiously located behind the head of the bed, where a small "studiolo" is hidden, linked to the library, to house favorite readings.
