Bajet Giramé

The 3 Marias House

The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia

THE 3 MARIAS HOUSE 

Bajet Giramé + Burckhardt

ARCHITECTS
Bajet Giramé, Nicolas Burckhardt Architekten

CATEGORY
Houses, Renovation

AREA
120 m²

PHOTOGRAPHS
José Hevia

YEAR
2020

MANUFACTURERS
Artemide, Huguet Mallorca surfaces

ARCHITECTS
Pau Bajet, Maria Giramé, Nicolas Burckhardt

Three sisters in the Mediterranean: The project enhances—aiming to exaggerate—the ‘courtyard house character of a summer residence from the sixties on the Mediterranean coast of Spain.

A house that three sisters in their thirties have decided to share as a summer home.

The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia
The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia

This renovated holiday house is a deliberately ambiguous habitat, between inside and outside, openly diverse, as wide and sunny as intimate and shady; offering coves, topographies, loggias, and gardens, in a spatial continuum that intends to provide a landscape of vitality and delight.

Gregarious and playful: The preexistence of a walled enclosure in the garden—which distinguished two areas of the surrounding patios, while connecting them by means of four arches—is echoed throughout the site.

This strategy results in a gregarious and playful matrix of exterior. Interior rooms, of different dimensions, character, light, and temperature; all of them interconnected by both old and new arches.

The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia
The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia
The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia

Against this, the new habitat opens—through a steel structure merged into window frames— a large chamber that includes living, dining, kitchen, and loggia areas.

Likewise, the pre-existing long corridor has been blurred: widely connected with the living area, the corridor has, in both ends, generous pivoting doors, providing spatial continuity with large versatile rooms of indeterminate function.

The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia
The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia

Steel thresholds: The façade openings are superimposed with different steel layers, meditating on the relationship between interior and exterior.

On the outside, a perforated sheet forms a sliding gate that makes it possible to sleep with the window open. Inside, rectangular folding window frames allow full exterior opening.Mud Topographies: The manifold continuity of the whole has been emphasized by a beautiful hand-crafted tapestry of Valencian terracotta tiles.

The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia
The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia
The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia

This pavement unifies garden and house, interior and exterior on the same topography; while it suggests difference and hierarchy through its pattern, acknowledging rooms and edges; building walkways, shelves, benches, and wall claddings.

Vernacular thermodynamics: In this summer house, without air conditioning, it’s never too hot. Following ordinary construction methods, the existing pitched roof sits on top of a dense matrix of walls which provide a ventilated cavity while increasing greatly thermal inertia.

The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia
The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia

This thermal comfort is improved with additional cross ventilation and sun protection.

In the garden, hard surfaces have been reduced to increase greenery, aiming to improve atmospheric humidity and perceived ambient comfort.


The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia
The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia
The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia
The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia
The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia
The 3 Marias House
© José Hevia


The 3 Marias House
Plans and Section
The 3 Marias House
Axonometry

Bajet Giramé
T +34 931 307734 M +34 660 169564
Bajet Giramé
C. de Pujades, 77-79, 8è7a, Sant Martí, 08005 Barcelona, Spain