EMILIANO LÓPEZ

Architects: EMILIANO LÓPEZ MÓNICA RIVERA ARQUITECTOS

Location: Girona, Spain

Year: 2012-2015

Images/text from: https://lopez-rivera.com Photos by José Hevia and Juande Jarrillo

By the Architects: 

In the rooms in direct contact with the terrain the slim glass windows are set back from the façade to avoid the sun coming in in summer and to permit it to do so during the remaining seasons. Entirely glazed, the south-facing rooms on the upper floor are shielded from the sun and provide a filter for the views via a delicate glazed lattice of ceramic that is separate from the glass frames.

The house obtained a Class A energy rating (highest achievable by Spanish standards) with an annual energy consumption of 38,42 kWh/m2 and emissions of 6,59 kg of CO2/m2 a year.

Architects: EMILIANO LÓPEZ MÓNICA RIVERA ARQUITECTOS

Location: Girona, Spain

Year: 2012-2016

Images/text from: https://lopez-rivera.com  Photos by José Hevia and Juande Jarrillo

By the Architects:

The houses are on a plot densely populated by tall, slender pines, cork trees, and holm oaks in Plafrugell, a part of the Costa Brava where cork was formerly produced.

The houses emerge from an uneven and steep terrain that has been modified as little as possible. Permeable gravel pavements have been introduced and the existing vegetation has been preserved and enhanced with new Mediterranean plantings, giving the impression of a place hardly changed after the intervention.

The structural base is in concrete and supports the cross-laminated timber structure above (produced in the Basque Country). All is clad on the outside by two layers of insulating cork

Inside the houses, the structural wood is left exposed, resulting in an atmosphere that is closer to the surrounding woodland than to the sea five hundred meters away.

The use of cork as a material for finishing the façades supports its environmental adaptability in a wooded landscape dominated by the presence of cork trees.

Intimate in scale, the indoor spaces are linked to one another without passageways in a sequence of rooms of varying size, their uses being defined by their relationship to the outside, be it the distant view of the sea, the vision of the tops of the pines or the direct means of access to the terrain.

The main floor of the larger house is extended via a free-standing sandblasted concrete canopy which forms two ample terraces —suspended among the pines— with views of the sea and the coastal mountain range.

Architects: EMILIANO LÓPEZ MÓNICA RIVERA ARQUITECTOS

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Images/text from: https://lopez-rivera.com Photos by José Hevia