Álvaro Gor Gómez’s design for Bobadilla House transcends the domestic scale, proposing an architecture that engages with, interprets and integrates the surroundings through precise and deeply rooted references. To the east, the jagged, sloping profile of the Sierra Nevada extends into the building’s form. To the west, the Vega de Ganada and the architecture of the tobacco drying sheds serve as inspiration for a perforated façade.
The house, with its great structural integrity, is built of exposed concrete, resistant to the passage of time and impervious to fleeting fashions, creating architecture designed to age gracefully. The entrance, a large gate reminiscent of traditional Granada farmhouses and mansions, acts as a threshold that bridges memory and innovation in this critical alternative, which reinterprets tradition and reconnects with the surroundings without sacrificing contemporary sensibilities.
Bobadilla House by Álvaro Gor. Photograph by Juanan Barros.
Project description by Álvaro Gor Gómez
A dwelling on the boundary between Granada and its Vega
Casa Bobadilla is conceived as a territorial project that transcends the domestic scale to become an architectural reflection on landscape, history, and contemporary ways of living.
Located at the diffuse edge where the city gradually dissolves into agricultural land, the house adopts a strategic and symbolic position. This transitional place—neither fully urban nor strictly rural—condenses many of the tensions that have defined the recent evolution of Granada and its plain: urban expansion, fragmentation of productive land, and the loss of landscape continuity. In response, Casa Bobadilla proposes an architecture that does not impose itself, but rather engages in dialogue, interprets, and integrates.
The project seeks to blend with its surroundings through precise and deeply rooted references. To the east, the imposing presence of Sierra Nevada defines a recognizable horizon line, whose inclined geometry and jagged profile are translated into the volumetry of the house. The roofs reinterpret the tradition of ceramic tiles through sloped planes that evoke snowy peaks, while the dominant white color recalls both vernacular architecture and the luminosity of the mountains.
To the west, the influence of the Vega of Granada is visible in multiple layers of the project. The architecture of tobacco drying sheds—functional, permeable structures adapted to the climate—inspires the perforations in the façade, designed to optimize cross ventilation and the entry of natural light. These openings not only respond to bioclimatic criteria, but also reinterpret a traditional constructive language from a contemporary perspective.
Likewise, the house incorporates elements of the agricultural landscape, such as the characteristic poplar tree of the dehesa, integrating vegetation that acts as both a climatic and visual filter. The presence of orchards and productive spaces between the façade and the plot recovers the historical logic of the dehesa as a metabolic system linked to everyday life.
The historical and cultural context amplifies the meaning of the project. From the site, it is possible to establish visual and symbolic relationships with landmarks such as the Alhambra or former industrial sugar factories like San Isidro or the Ingenio de San Juan—remnants of a productive memory that shaped the region’s economic development.
In constructive terms, Casa Bobadilla is committed to the honesty and durability of materials. The use of exposed concrete responds both to economic criteria—reducing the need for additional finishes—and to a desire for permanence: an architecture designed to age gracefully, resistant to the passage of time and detached from fleeting trends. This choice reinforces the idea of the house as a stable element within a constantly transforming territory.
Sustainability is actively integrated through the incorporation of solar panels, enabling progress toward energy self-sufficiency and reducing dependence on fossil fuels. This strategy is not presented as a technological add-on, but as a coherent extension of the relationship between architecture and its environment.
Another significant element is the access to the house, resolved through a large gate that references traditional cortijosand manor houses of Granada. However, its design has been reinterpreted through a contemporary logic, becoming a threshold that articulates memory and innovation.
The relationship with the built fabric of the Bobadilla neighborhood is also fundamental. In this hybrid environment, where housing and agro-industrial structures coexist, the house is inserted with respect for existing scales, materials, and typologies, avoiding unnecessary formal ruptures. In this way, the project not only engages with the natural landscape, but also with the built one.
In a context where the Vega of Granada has been progressively fragmented by aggressive urban dynamics, Casa Bobadilla positions itself as a critical alternative. It proposes a way of inhabiting that recognizes the value of productive land, recovers historical links between city and landscape, and suggests a form of domesticity rooted in the local while embracing contemporaneity.
Ultimately, more than a house, Casa Bobadilla is a mediating piece between two worlds. A project that understands architecture as a tool to reconnect with the environment, reinterpret tradition, and project new forms of coexistence between the urban and the agricultural.
