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House B-V by MAQLA Adiu

Emilio Llobat Guarino is a young Spanish architect who sent me one of his recent projects – House B-V.

This home, located in a coastal area, and features typical elements of the Spanish style covered in a smooth, white stucco. The front features on open garden area. With the combination of rich wood and bright white, this home could easily be located in Brazil. I love the rainwater drainage feature – the rain that lands on the roof funnels inward instead of over the side to avoid staining.

From the architect:

The holes for windows and doors have been solved with sliding wooden slats systems to control the sunlight. Then, the façades are designed in two colors and textures: the white at stucco background and over it, the brown from the wood slats. The dominant white reflects simplicity and luminosity and the natural light makes different tonalities, shades and effects in all elevations.

The dynamism of the wood sliding systems allows create different views of the façade from the same point of view, whether closed or open, showing, in this last case, when life is inside the house. The composition of the east façade (main) defines three flights of lines that reinforce the horizontal dominance aspect of this view and reflects the number of indoor levels above ground, corresponding to two levels at ground floor and another one at first floor. The steel columns have been left as seen through an oxide paint treatment.

The owners, a young couple with children wished the full day-and-night program on the same floor, so that the family would be close in space. Also had to provide some areas for recreational use and work, separated, on other floors of the house. So, it was planned a ground floor with all living program. The underground and first floors were for different uses.

As the natural terrain was below from the street level, we took advantage of it and, with very little excavation, made an underground floor and used the surplus lands to fill the rest of the parcel with optimal cost. The underground floor contains a two-car garage. It also has an art workspace, for painting and sculpture, which fills the artistic needs of the owner. The walls and floor coverings have been treated in a more industrial way, as built and low cost: concrete flooring is finished with a paint resin and concrete walls are seen, with transparent protection paint.

Location: BenicĂ ssim (CastellĂłn), Spain
Architects: Emilio Llobat Guarino / MAQLA adiu
Completion Date: 2010
Built area: 467,41 m2
Promoter: Beatriz Díaz & Vicente Ordoñez
Technical Surveyor: Pablo Sistero
Collaboration Team: Beatriz Diaz-Pablo Sistero, José J. Domínguez, Carlos Zafont, Alfonso Llobat.
Photographer: Emilio Llobat Guarino

Jaime Derringer, Founder + Executive Editor of Design Milk, is a Jersey girl living in SoCal. She dreams about funky, artistic jewelry + having enough free time to enjoy some of her favorite things—running, reading, making music, and drawing.