Ca Na Maria
This single-family house is located on the highest and most horizontal area of a rustic land. This plot, which presents a significant slope and it is divided into terraces by existing dry stone walls, once formed part of a larger agricultural land and today is covered with native vegetation, mainly pine forest.
The project seeks to make the most out of the house location in its geographical and natural environment in order to exploit its interaction with it. That way, it takes advantage of all possible relationships between interior spaces and, specially, between indoor and outdoor spaces, offering family members the Balearic climate’s so desired “outdoor life".
The construction is configured as a single prismatic volume of about 29x8x3.5m oriented southeast to maximise views of its own land. The main floor is divided into four functional units successively arranged: entrance-kitchen / terrace-living room / library-bedrooms / guest bedroom or home office. The volume presents two points of interruption. One gives place to the double orientation living room, which becomes the house’s central area and whose boundaries extend beyond the enclosure by integrating the entrance courtyard and the rear terrace. It becomes an interior or exterior space depending on the time of year, bringing all the surrounding nature closer to the house occupants during warm seasons. The second gap separates the family sleeping area from the guests area-home office through a glazed space and a sunken courtyard that illuminates the social area located in the basement, where the installation facilities and auxiliary spaces for the orchard are also located.
The house is provided with a wide variety of linked spaces capable of hosting all the different activities and relationships so they can occur in a fluid way. Transversely, the inward prolongation of the outside terraces, configures the living room which extends longitudinally on one end to the kitchen (where the two-sided fireplace is the link) and on the opposite to the library (a space where daily activities can be conducted in the company of other members of the family)
Without succumbing to local folk but in full compliance with local regulations, a link with the traditional architectural language has been established with typical materials found on the cottages of the island: white load bearing walls, ceramic and stone floors, and wood window and door frames. The openings in the facade, all of different proportions and sizes, appear laid out on a “disordered” pattern when observed from the exterior but they are actually looking for the "internal adjustment", also taking aligned positions in opposite facades to facilitate adequate ventilation and allowing exterior-exterior cross views. Besides, they are protected from sunlight by concrete frames painted in blue, similar to the colour on the windows of the original building of the farm, framing the views and enhancing the plasticity of the facade. The front yard and the pool also refer to the vernacular architecture. The latter, placed on the prolongation of one of the aforementioned stone walls, takes the colour of the ponds found everywhere in the island and is separated from the house by a space that will be colonized again by native vegetation which will be changing with the seasons.
