The project of the isolated, single family house ISH 04 in Teulada (Alicante). The fact is that architecture is a technical exercise, a solution within an infinite realm of possibilities, but the difference, a difference among many, is the emotion it transmits.
This house is located on a plot of 892m2 within the urbanisation of “El Portet de Moraira”, a plot which slopes significantly (9 metre height) in a southeast/northwest direction and also hosts pre-existing terraces which determine the topography. Its elevated, crown position grants it the sweetness of altitude within a consolidated environment, which finds the Mediterranean Sea spreading itself out to the east and the valley which hosts Moraira city to the west.
The house is organised as a ground floor and first floor construction, oriented to strengthen the east-west transversality, and as such, simultaneously supports the ground whilst hovering over it in the direction of the slope. Placed orthogonally to this house, the quarries both cut and contain the earth, creating terraces like bands which have determined the structure of the plot.
In this house, structure and planning maintain an unbreakable relationship, due to the fact they have been born from the same exercise which seeks to meet all the needs for compartmentalisation and creation of spaces: two large edge beams, joined by an imposing roof define the living space, to which a hanging wooden volume has been added.
The elements that are recognisable from the exterior respond to the interior in the same way, and consequently the project exposes itself bare, with nothing to hide. In this way, materiality plays a constant role, one of connection and expansion, in such a way that noble materials have been chosen which respond in an optimal way to the expansion of the exterior as much as the interior. Thus, the house has been created using reinforced concrete (a stony, durable and pliable material), wood (which brings nobility and warmth) and walls of stone extracted from the ground (which link the new project to the roots of the place).
Functionally speaking, the house distributes secondary and guest uses over the ground floor, and on the first floor the main programme of uses. The ground floor is located behind a stone wall, making itself a part of the anthropization of the terrain. The first floor is accessed via a double height space where the staircase, a delicately elaborated element, is found. From here one can access the upper floor. Spatially, this floor offers multidisciplinary areas which can respond to the different needs of the inhabitant, thanks to the flexibility provided by the daytime zone. Openness is also a direct consequence of the shielded walls which are used to configure the resulting volume. On the same floor we find the night-time programme (bedrooms and bathroom) which presents itself in an enclosed volume, 60 centimetres above the daytime zone, in order to create visual connection and lightness as much inside as outside. This is the body which flies firmly towards the landscape, rewarding both bedrooms with privileged views towards the Moraira valley which stretches out before them.
