Due to the low ceilings of the house it was decided to remove a part of the bajocubierta to give a double height to the main floor. And to give it more lighting, since it originally only had a window of small dimensions, they opened a hole in a side that overlooks the patio to arrange the window and thus illuminate the entire main room.
Description of project by Buho Arquitectos
Covarrubias in a medieval town in the province of Burgos whose traditional construction is based on the framework of wood plemented with earth brics and covered with lime mortar. The building to be rehabilitated is located in the historic center of the town. It is located on a narrow street, within a narrow plot, with a narrow patio on one side, connected to the street. The original house had some stables for animals on the ground floor, with the house on the first floor and a small undercover in which the kitchen and a barn were located. The house only had a couple of lighting holes and it was very dark. The strict urban regulations, as the town is a historical complex, required to maintain the heights, the eaves and the façade.
During the work, an attempt was made to preserve the original structure, but it could only be done in part, due to the poor condition of the wooden floors. For this reason, a metallic structure was introduced that was combined with the existing wooden one, so that the elements substituted contrasts with those maintained, like some “structural grafts” that are shown without shame. The new metallic structure is not camouflaged, but is shown raw, without superficial cosmetics. The original wood is cleaned of its plaster coatings and shows its rough texture. The rolled profiles and the corrugated sheet metal slabs provide shine and smoothness, but are used with their industrial finish, without processing. Metal becomes the protagonist in combination with wood, not only in the structure but also in the coatings. Thus, in the arcade on the ground floor, the steel sheets provide a cold and armored texture to the stairwell, while on the upper floor, already inside the house, the oriented chipboard of the walls and the wood floors provide the necessary warmth.
The original house had very low ceilings. It is necessary to dismantle part of the undercover slab, in the area with the least useful height, so that space is freed to give it to the main space. The entire interior is conceived as a single space developed in two heights: the lower part for the day area and the small upper mezzanine conceived as open balconies that open onto the common space. As the only window facing the street is too small to illuminate all this new space, a large window opens on the side that overlooks the patio, which provides diffuse light thanks to the shadow of the adjoining building, allowing the light natural between filtered through the center and reaching the staircase, which is also glazed. The ground floor is freed from the walls of the corrals, obtaining a diaphanous arcade open to the patio, oxygenating the house at the access, forming a wide entrance hall in which only the metal box that encloses the staircase stands out.
