The project by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos seeks to cause minimal impact on the environment and promote the experience of living in the shade, and it is through the use of warm materials and tones that the architects give the house and its common and private spaces warmth in every corner.
The program is distributed internally through a central communication core that brings together the different skylights that illuminate the central spaces and allow connection with the sheet of water that forms the roof, which functions, in addition to being an aesthetic appeal, as an acoustic and thermal insulator.
House in Sotogrande by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos. Photograph by Fernando Guerra.
Project description by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos
Located in front of the Sotogrande golf course, the layout of this house invites us to experience the shadow between the ground plane and the roof that extends over it. A generous roof cantilever that not only offers shelter from the intense sun of Cadiz, but also protects from the copious rains that descend from the Sierra de Grazalema, the place with the highest rainfall in the Iberian Peninsula.
In the deep interior of the building, a wooden volume is generated, giving the rooms the necessary privacy while providing the desired warmth in every corner. Four different limits emerge that define the spatiality of the house: the ground plane, the shadow generated by the architectural cantilever, the glass that allows efficient climatic conditioning of the interior, and finally, the cozy limit of the wood.
Access to the house is from the upper street, a strategic point that offers a privileged view of the water mirror and the landscape. This feature in the roof works as thermal and acoustic insulation. The layer of water regulates the temperature of the building, works as an insulator, absorbs heat during the day and slowly releases it at night, reducing the need for heating and air conditioning.
One of the requirements of the house was that the materials used in the house had a warm tone. Internally, the compact program is distributed through a central communication core that encompases the skylights that illuminate the central spaces and allow access to the upper water mirror.
The roof planes and the ground level plane are carefully moved to generate a covered access that invites to enter, as well as an endless pool that extends over the golf course. The aim is to have the minimum impact on the environment, to live between two planes, promoting the experience of something as simple as an inhabited shadow in Sotogrande.
