The house renovation by Atelier Atlántico is located on the southern edge of the urban area of ​​the municipality of Nestares, in La Rioja. The project aims to understand and discover what is relevant in the building to make it present, showing the memory, culture and material that inherently build it.

The initial house, which had an inefficient layout of spaces, did not allow its virtues to be highlighted; the new project transforms it, linking it to its rural context, to recover the values ​​that characterize it and improve its perception through variations in the dimension and materials, both interior and exterior.

Atelier Atlántico's intervention consists consists especially of a comprehensive recovery work, where past, present and future are linked through stone as a material nexus, generating an architecture that delves into the roots of the traditional houses of the area, where landscape, garden and housing form a continuous set that facilitates and improves the way of living.

The architects worked on this project like archaeologists, searching for the material that originally made up the house, scraping away the coverings and recovering different elements such as wooden flooring or hydraulic tiles, resulting in a sum of optimized spaces that seek a new connection both with their surroundings and with their interior perception. The project becomes an example of a mansion in the Riojan and Soria mountains, which, when updated, easily dialogues with its past.

Casona en Nestares por Atelier Atlántico. Fotografía por Luis Asin --- Mountain House in Nestares by Atelier Atlántico. Photograph by Luis Asin

Mountain House in Nestares by Atelier Atlántico. Photograph by Luis Asín.

Project description by Atelier Atlántico

Our first goal as architects will be to understand and discover what is present in a given context to make it evident. To reveal the memory, culture, and material that inherently construct a specific place. This house in Nestares, located on the southern edge of the consolidated urban area, is a journey through time in search of the marks of its past, to imagine how to inhabit it in the future.

The house has approximate dimensions of 10×13 meters, with its three main orientations being south, east, and north. The dwelling consists of two habitable floors and an attic used for installations and occasional storage. This house did not respond to the conditions of the surrounding landscape, the orientations, or the wonderful sunlight it could have had. On the ground floor, the house had only one bathroom, a kitchen, a dining room and living room, storage space, an entrance area, and, finally, a bedroom facing north. On the upper floor, there was only one bathroom and six rooms, following a nearly Palladian typological layout of three bays in two directions.

In addition to this, the layout of the spaces, the numerous partitions, and the lack of optimization of the interior volume made the house too hot in summer and very cold in winter, depriving it of any thermal comfort inside. This high level of unhealthiness, combined with the plaster coatings that covered the wooden structure, caused rotting and deterioration of the structural elements of the house.

Casona en Nestares por Atelier Atlántico. Fotografía por Luis Asin --- Mountain House in Nestares by Atelier Atlántico. Photograph by Luis Asin
Mountain House in Nestares by Atelier Atlántico. Photograph by Luis Asín.

After identifying the problems and virtues of the house, we set out to recover its main values. To this end, it was decided to connect the house with its context both typologically and materially. The house must face south, towards the Sierra de la Demanda, where the Iregua River originates, and east, towards the promenade with horse chestnut trees. In addition, the landscape section of the house will be analyzed, seeking a new connection between north and south, which will introduce cross-lighting and ventilation into the interior space, improving the living environment.

The first action to be taken will be the removal of the central strip of floors in the house. This will restore the Palladian floor plan scheme typical of “indiano” houses in the Camero region, where circulation occurs around the central space, creating diverse transversal views. The new interior volume will dissipate heat through cross ventilation and the new light chimney, which appears as a typical “pinariego” element from the Rioja and Soria mountain ranges.

Secondly, a series of actions will be carried out on each of the existing openings. We will always start from their preexistence to operate in various ways: when the opening is enlarged or transformed, concrete frames will appear on all four sides; when expanded upwards or downwards, there will be a lintel and a sill; and finally, the openings that remain unchanged will not show any alterations. This will create dimensional and material variations on the exterior, transforming the perception of the house.

Casona en Nestares por Atelier Atlántico. Fotografía por Luis Asín
Mountain House in Nestares by Atelier Atlántico. Photograph by Luis Asín.

Finally, we will work as archaeologists, seeking the material that made up the house. All the coatings will be scraped off, and new layers will be created. Where there was tufa stone (travertine), it will be rejoined with lime-based mortar, similarly marble-like. The walnut wood structure will be cleaned, revealing how it transfers the roof loads to the ground. The preexisting pine wood flooring will be restored, as well as the entire set of hydraulic tiles that made up the house’s flooring. Lastly, the new carpentry and furniture will also be made of pine wood, with a dark stain to create a relationship between the parts. The new reinforced concrete elements will be sandblasted to reveal the internal aggregate, aiming to evoke the stone-like quality of this material.

The house in Nestares is an exercise in comprehensive restoration, where past, present, and future are linked through stone as a material and typological nexus. An architecture that delves into the roots of traditional houses in the Rioja mountain range, where landscape, garden, and dwelling form a whole for better living.

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Architects
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Atelier Atlántico. Lead Architects.- Mario Galiana + Germán Müller.

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Project team
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Paulo Monzón, Juán Alvarez, Emma López.

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Collaborators
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Alberto Cantabrana Ingeniería, Construcciones Pedro Elías, Electricidad Hemasa S.L, Insona S.L, Carpintería Cabalo S.L, Carpintería Espin, Revestimientos RV.

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Area
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260 sqm built.
1000 sqm garden.

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Dates
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March 2022 - June 2024.

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Location
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Nestares, La Rioja, Spain.

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Manufacturers
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Hydraulic flooring recovered from Cerámicas Bergasa (1890).
KB13 Bioarquitectura Fassa Bortolo.- Lime mortar with marble base.
Cerámicas Sampedro.– Termoarcilla.
Madera de Pino Soria. – Furniture.

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Photography
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Luis Asín, Federico Cairoli.

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Atelier Atlántico is an architecture workshop located in Logroño and Santa Fe founded in 2017 by Germán Müller Calace and Mario Galiana Liras. It is defined as an architecture studio with two polar opposite cultural roots separated by an ocean. As such, the workspace is understood as a workshop where simple architectural answers to complex problems are sought.

It is a workshop dedicated to the design, theoretical and teaching practice of architecture, understanding this as a place where ideas are built and materialized through a non-linear work process that interweaves the three worlds seeking to return to the elementary architectural foundations. It uses the history and imagination of the material as a formal construct using simple geometries, which seek order in the structural serie of elements that define the space through the material itself and its rules.

The practice seeks a concrete answer in the memory of each location, place or space, investigating their cultural, material and historical vestiges, for the definition of specific objects and understanding architecture as a response to the cultural, social and economic reality of the moment. The projects reduce architecture to what is expressly essential, seeking materially clear and honest structures. In this way, a response is found to the projects proposed through the use of current craftsmanship, exploring the specific constructive knowledge that surrounds it.

Germán Müller Calace. Architect from the FADU of the Universidad de Nacional del Litoral (2010). Master in Architectural Design from the ETSA of the University of Navarra (2016), which he accessed after winning the FAPYD Rosario Scholarship in 2015.

Since 2021 he has participated as Head of Practical Work in TPA 1 and 2 Mendiondo professorship “Horizontal Workshop” of the FADU-UNL.

He worked in the Secretary of Architectural Works of the Municipality of Santa Fe in the development of projects and public works that have received national and international awards (2011-2019). He served as Executive Coordinator of Urban Heritage for the City of Santa Fe (2020-2022).

He has been part of DLS arquitectos as a founding partner (2010-2016). He has collaborated in studio MADe (2015-2017). He has won several awards and mentions in national and international competitions.

Mario Galiana Liras. Graduated Architect at the ETSA University of La Coruña (2012), where he was graduated with distinctions in his final Project degree, and with the special award University of La Coruña. Postgraduate degree in Advanced architectural design by the ETSA University of Navarre (2016). PhD in architecture, with a thesis titled ¨Matter strategies. The architecture of Material imagination¨(2020), ETSA UNAV. Special Award PhD in Applied Creativity on the ETSA UNAV.

Since 2016 he has been teacher assistant in Composition Elements and architecture studios I and II. In 2020 he began as a lecturer in architecture studios III and IV at the ETSA of the University of Navarre. At the same time, he has been the founder together with Víctor Larripa of the 20 UNDER 40 conference series. He is currently in charge of the conference cycles in the ETSA of the University of Navarre.

He has worked with Carlos Pita arquitectos, with studio MADe in India (partner 2015-2017) and Emilio Tuñon Arquitectos. He has won several awards and prizes in national and international competitions.
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