La casa de Jesús
La casa de Jesús is located in El Ventorrillo de Cullar Vega, in the countryside of Granada. This area is characterized by plots of land with two-level single-family houses, all of them with enough space for their gardens and terraces.
But La casa de Jesús had to be fully accessible and one storey high, a fact that would leave little space between the house and the confines of the plot. Under these circumstances we thought about the possibility of designing a single-storey building but with half of the usual occupant capacity. In other words, we wanted to incorporate the advantages of adjoining houses with the accessibility of a horizontal house. The combination of these two designs will allow Jesús to immerse himself in an outdoor atmosphere. The result of the research to merge these two designs is a house composed of “two halves” of similar proportions but different nature. One half is for night-time; it is massive and private, located in the most protected part of the plot. Another half is for day-time; it is completely open to the outdoors. Both parts are joined in order to create a house open to the south in a U-form, where the outside part is inserted into the inside part, while the interior is projected towards the exterior by means of a parallelepiped glass of 5.35 x 9.30m., covered by a large cantilever lightweight reinforced concrete overhang of 9.00 x 16.00m. The structural system we have chosen is reinforced concrete made lightweight by blocks of extruded polystyrene. This technique allows us to achieve a great overhang with the thin edge and the feeling of lightness that the house transmits.
La casa de Jesús can in fact be interpreted as a large living room that gradually opens onto the patio, where the boundary walls of the plot become the real limit of the house. All of this extends the margin of Jesus’ freedom and mobility to the maximum. The house is a sequence of spaces; it goes from the privacy of the bedrooms, through the semiprivate space of the dining room, to the living room and the swimming-pool area. It is a single space that acts like many at the same time due to its constant transformation. The result is a space full of multiple nuances of the light and shadow that the house receives every day. A place inspired by the Nasrid Palaces of the Alhambra and, specifically, by the magic relationship between its halls and courtyards.
