Ocellets

Housing located in Can Caralleu, a neighbourhood at the foot of Collserola built by immigrants from Andalusia and Extremadura in the 1940s and 50s, often using materials from pre-existing temporary structures.

The client’s grandparents built one of these remarkably simple homes on a privileged plot overlooking Barcelona and the sea. Now long gone, and with only one plot still occupied, this first house remains alive in the minds of our clients. A minimalist construction spread over a single floor at the highest point of the plot, the new house enjoys a fantastic courtyard with grapevines and panoramic view, with a vegetable garden lying further below. With outdoor space as much a part of the home as the house itself, a favourable orientation and basic materials offer the chance to build an archetypal Mediterranean home. A house where one can live well when the weather is good.

Our clients sought a minimal home with a garden and allotment, and the project fits the exact purpose of the original house. It updates the outer walls with more modern features in compliance with current urban planning regulations, which require them to be separated from the boundaries of the plot. To free up as much land as possible, the building has a reduced floor space of 40m2 and uses all of the available height. The garden remains at natural ground level, following a slope, and is divided into strips which both define and furnish its purposes. It also features a parking space, a small storage space, an allotment, a lookout bench supported by vines and a terrace at the entrance.

The home is designed to be self-reflexive. It is divided into two very clear halves at three different heights, with an intermediate wooden mezzanine providing air to the interior space, and three equal levels of minimum height, with a room on each floor. A wooden staircase connects the different levels.

With ample sunlight exposure and a minimum number of openings to the north, the thermal inertia and insulation of the building guarantee solid passive performance in winter. In summer, the vines and the blinds enable continuous shade, and the different openings will ensure that advantage can be taken of the prevailing winds so that the air can pass through the house with ease.

The house features large load-bearing walls with ceramic thermo-clay that is left exposed on the inside and covered on the outside with cork and lime. Unidirectional hollow concrete joists feature throughout, except in the mezzanine, where light wooden beams are used. The house is an exercise in pure construction, yet from the outside it has the appearance of a simple whitewashed building similar to the original houses in the area.