One Story Thomsen House by Costa Calsamiglia Arquitecte

Architects: Costa Calsamiglia Arquitecte
Location: Empúries, Catalonia, Spain
Year: 2015
Photo courtesy: Marcela Grassi
Description:

The house, considered as a second home for a family who lives in Switzerland, is in an uncommon area: it is 50 meters (164 feet) from the shoreline, between the hills and the forested areas of pines, and close to the vestiges of Ampurias.

The plot is rectangular fit as a fiddle and has a customary slant toward the shoreline. Its southern end, the sunniest, it is in the meantime where the best perspectives to the ocean are. It is as of right now that it was composed an expansive porch to which you can access from the lounge and the kitchen.

When we begin burrowing we discovered two tombs from the Roman period and a Greek. Our plot, between the old city and the ocean, was a piece of its necropolis. The venture theoretically it is a moral story of the relationship between the universe of the living (white) and the universe of the dead (stone); both isolated by a slender line, in the task, of electrifies steel. The stone, the current dividers, the removal, the Roman and Greek universes, are extremely present all through the venture.

Clients had a couple clear thoughts of what they needed:

– We are hoping to manufacture a decent quality house. We like the house to be work with a mix of old stones. Not every single old stone but rather a configuration which incorporate a mix with old stones. We might want to utilize the greatest building standard for the area and also the most extreme stature permitted.

– We plan to have an expert room, two children room and a vast open kitchen and front room space on the principal floor. The main floor would be associated (through sliding windows entryways) to an expansive porch space pursuing the house and around the sunny side (south?) of the house. We would likewise need to have the expert room associated with the patio and greenery enclosure.

– We might want to secure a pleasant perspective on the water from the primary porch zone and kitchen/living zone (i.e. towards the sunny side of the house, south I accept).

The house is isolated into two stories, the lower floor, committed to administrations and civilities, is outlined in a way that it is interested in the back side of the greenery enclosure and to a pine backwoods that dives to the shoreline.

On the top floor there is a parlor, a lounge area – open to the huge outside patio – a visitor latrine and two spaces for the youngsters with a washroom for each of them, furthermore the folks suite, with an extensive room with a stroll in storage room and a restroom with a shower and a bathtub.

On the lower floor there is a visitor room with its own lavatory, a multipurpose room with some space for an office, a TV and a bar, a changing area, a space for clothes washers, a carport for two autos and wine basement.

At the passage there is a major glass that permits straightforwardness of the two veneers, confronting to a decent tree that permits the proprietors take after the season changes on it, in the appropriation lobby between the day and night regions, and opening the space to the rooms to the sun and the perspectives.

The day region mixes into the patio nursery through a vast yard that interfaces within with the pool and the ocean. The kitchen is found deliberately, keeping up its own space limited by a focal island, yet in the meantime appreciating the connection with the outside. The exterior of the upper floor, all white, is playing with compositions. Part of the stone dividers, are lime whitewashed.

In the arrangements that are a tad bit avoided the important plane of the exterior, in the rooms and the sky facing window, there is a uniquely outlined vertical grouping, formed by the brilliant extent identified with their tallness, which makes a play of light and shadows all through the distinctive periods of the day, offering life to the façade.

The materials have been utilized, after the idea of the venture, and are distinctive on the ground and underground floor. On the ground underneath, where an edge yard surges with characteristic light every one of the rooms, the asphalt is a consistent magnesite floor, with its common shading, and upstairs, the floor is made of an American oak wide board of 24cm (0.78ft) long and variable long.

The outcome is an agreeable, utilitarian house, with a lot of regular light and personally associated with the Mediterranean Sea and to the remnants of an antiquated human civilization.