House in El Priorat / espairoux arquitectura

Architect: espairoux arquitectura
Location: Els Guiamets, Spain
Author Architectes: Albert Gasol, Jordi Mestrich
Area: 294.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographer: Jordi Mestrich

Technical Architect: Ricard Balaña
Structure Consultant: Ton Hernández
Energetic Certification: Esther Gimeno
Construction Company: HINCOSA S.L.

Text description provided by the architects. A detached house between dividing walls located in a small town of El Priorat, a region in southern Catalonia known for its wine production with a D.O. valued worldwide.

The environment is a landscape dotted with vineyards of singular beauty. The house is located in the historical center of town, very close to the church and the main street. Following the regulations and heritage protection requirements, the main street façade has been designed with the local materials and construction characteristics: stone façade, balconies in vertical proportion, wooden shutters and Venetian blinds, iron railings and inclined roof with Arabic tiles and ceramic cornice.

The house consists of a ground floor and two floors with sloping roof. At the back, an interior courtyard has been created with large openings that bathe the spaces with natural light and with an enclosure system made up of vertical slats that fold in an accordion shape, generating multiple options in the composition of the rear façade.

The common areas are organized around this patio: the living-dining room and the kitchen on the ground floor, the hall and stairs on the first floor, and a multi-purpose room on the second floor. The bedrooms are on the street façade.
The main structure combines pillars and metal beams with concrete beams and the slabs are made of concrete joist and exposed ceramic vaults.

On the ground floor we find the main access to the house from the street, as well as the garage, a large living room that opens to both the interior courtyard and the street façade, thus allowing cross-ventilation, and the kitchen-office that also opens to the inner courtyard.

Through oak stairs we reach the first floor where we find a bright hall, open to the courtyard, from where we access the bedrooms.
Through a metal structure staircase with oak steps we access the second floor where we find the master bedroom, a full bathroom with closet and a large diaphanous room with a small loft above the bathroom.

A decision was made to leave the structure exposed, showing how the house is built and giving importance to the construction materials: steel, concrete and ceramic vaults. Equally, natural materials have been chosen for the interior finishes such as the oak of the stairs and the bespoke furniture in the living room, the birch for the paneling of the access areas to the bedrooms, and the furniture in bathrooms and kitchen.

On the ground floor, to give continuity to the polished concrete pavement of the interior courtyard, a microcemento pavement has been chosen which has also been used as the floor in the bathrooms.