House in Puerto de la Madera
The original house, built in the decade of the sixties, was located on the coastal strip in the north of Tenerife Island, in a beautiful natural scenery of Puerto de La Madera. Initially it was designed as a holiday mansion and did not present remarkable architectural values. Moreover, due to its composition and height, the house constituted an important visual impact over the landscape.
The work consisted of the integral refurbishment of the house without expanding its surface and focusing on the landscape integration of the construction. At the architectural level, the aim was to sought an open layout and strengthening of the views from the house over the Atlantic Ocean and the Teide volcano.
To achieve the above goals, the original structure of reinforced concrete was uncovered and left without any additional finishing, reinforcing its presence and rhythm. In such way, the real character of the house was preserved and its history was shown. The house became modern but not new.
In order to reduce the visual impact, which the existing construction imposed over neighboring villages, the hipped tile roof has been demolished, so that the pre-existing ceiling now constitutes the new roof.
With the same objective of landscape integration, the original topography of natural platforms, which back in the day was modified to allow the access to the garage, was restored. In this way, the view of the house from the neighboring town of Mesa del Mar is reduced by one floor high.
The exterior of the property is arranged on several different levels (bancales) with concrete platforms, resembling traditional canarian agricultural terraces. Those terraces are used to cultivate native plants like canarian cactus called “cardones”, palms and dragon trees, called “dragos”, which are adapted to the local environment. The form of the terraces and the use of local plants, are strengthening the connection between the property and its closest natural environment.
The flat roof of the house is covered with a gravel of basaltic stone, which also creates friendly environment for local plants to grow. The exterior walls of the house have been thought to mimic its surroundings and reduce the visual impact of the building. To achieve this the chromatic colours, as well as textured grey plaster and natural materials were used for finishing of the house exterior.
