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Casa del Horizonte
Casa del Horizonte
Salamanca, Spain
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Casa del Horizonte
Salamanca, Spain
It is only after having decided where a house is to be built that one is
conscious of the tremendous significance that decision has for the future
happiness of its inhabitants. It recalls
those Vitruvian texts that narrate how the sites for the settlement of new
cities were decided upon in Rome.
The terrain had numerous possibilities, but the genius loci whispered to architect,
telling him to set the house on a specific spot. A quiet place, far enough from the city for
the house to have the quality that a villa has in Italy: a place at a suitable
distance from the city to allow the cultivated urban man to contemplate
nature. Thanks to this necessary
distance, its solitude, the house meets the requisites as villa in relation to
the city of Salamanca, and perhaps shortly, when
the train line currently under construction is completed, in relation to Madrid.
The spot where the house is situated is the highest
point of a hill that slopes gently on its northern side and drops sharply
towards the Castilian plateau on the south.
It rises on a flat and infinite landscape that has the Gredos and Gata
mountain ranges as a backdrop about 100 kilometers
away. From its inception, the house
sought to appropriate that distant horizon in order to give it back to its
inhabitants as a gift.
Topography, biology and orientation constitute a very
important part of architecture’s space- hence the importance of the choice of
place—and they are important to this house as well. Its access from the nearest road is arduous,
consisting of a rocky dirt path some 700 meters long that winds through an oak woods
and ends in a clearing. When one reaches
the top of the hill, there is a rocky area from which one can see that what on
its north side appears to be a hill, on its south becomes a promontory over the
plateau.
The project seeks to underline these spaces found in
the site in order to make them habitable in a home that looks expectantly
towards the distant horizon.
Therefore, the house has two scales: a small and
fragmented one on the north, east and west sides where the oak woods surrounds
it, and a large, open one on the south, facing the absolute presence of the
infinite horizon of the plain.
The house is reached by means of a platform
constructing a limit that unites the privacy of the home and the countryside
around it at the same time that it connects the nearby oak woods with the
distant plateau. So that a second scale
is established by the platform that serves the function of threshold to the
house, analogous to what the house is to the landscape. Seen from the countryside the platform forms
part of the house, while from the house, the access plane provides a frame for
the natural world. This interpretation
is helped by perception of the platform, seen from the outside, as a vertical,
constructed, artificial wall and by the knowledge, from the inside of the
house, of its horizontal plane. Frontality and horizontality, discontinuity and
continuity in space. In keeping with this ambivalence in the platform, on it,
the natural and the artificial are superimposed: the trees, water and rocks can
be made out along with the concrete podium.
And here, another of the characteristics of this house should be pointed
out: in it the controlled union of ineffable nature and the predictable and
abstract artifice of architecture has been sought.
The material with which the house has been constructed
varies according to the different function served. When it has a structural
function, the material is concrete and stone, to which steel is added to assist
wherever necessary. When the function is
not structural, the house is constructed of easily dismountable and therefore
replaceable materials: glass, tile, steel and wood. Thus the house presents a
double construction: a perennial part constructed to last – firmitas - to which the foundation and
structure belong, and the other part, of a more ephemeral and technical nature
built to change with the times – utilitas
-- that provides a specific answer to the function and to the
installations.
The house has a longitudinal and a perpendicular
development to the horizon; its vertical load-bearing structure consists of
load bearing walls of cyclopean concrete, except on the south prow, where four
metal cruciform pillars are located.
Over this structure, a 10,50 x 43 meter slab of reinforced concrete rests. The
structure underlines the space. The
succession of vertical load bearing walls in the northern area allows the
servicing and served spaces to be divided: the first, opening to patios between
walls and the second offering partial and lateral views of the
surroundings. However, the space opens
as it gets closer to the living and dining area in the south, until it reaches
a 180º open, horizontal and complete view of the Castilian plain.
Returning to the choice of materials, those belonging
to the place and with a lasting nature were sought. To achieve this proposition, rock from the
building excavation itself was used to make the cyclopean concrete. The process of constructing these walls was
the result of laborious research and experimentation that took place prior to
beginning work on the house. Constructive theory and logic were thus added to
the building definition. In this way,
after adding the formwork and wire mesh inside, the concrete was poured
simultaneously with rock from the area.
Once it had begun to set but before it was too hard, the concrete was
chipped away until the rock it contained was exposed in those areas where the
wall has the nature of severy; where the concrete must be protected in walls
containing load-bearing steel, small rocks were embedded as finish.
The constructed result consists of a lower and solid
part that is attached to the terrain, belonging to it. A stony volume, drawn only at its edges and
softer in between, constructed out of a material that in itself reveals the
nature of the place— its very stone--as well as the building culture of
reinforced concrete. Thanks to the rough
texture of the vertical walls, the surrounding nature recognizes them as its
own, allowing the lichen, moss and plants of the area to grow on them. These vertical walls contain air in the space
inside and are recipients of earth or stereotomics in the space outside:
volumes full of gravel extracted from a quarry situated only a few meters away
construct a new slope on the terrain, giving the house a double harmony: one
with the immediate natural surroundings and another with the distant horizon on
the south. On this platform, this new
soil- foundation rests the slab of the roof that is a cover against snow and
rain and provides the necessary shade so that the house is useful and beautiful
in both summer and winter.
The philosopher said that a space is something that
has been made habitable so it can be named by its limits, and a limit is not
what borders something but instead is the place where things begin to have
presence. As a reading of this concept
in the architectural space of the house, a relationship between the limit and
continuity and the edge and discontinuity of this space can be
established. The house, while being a
place in which fragments of controlled nature are framed, is, above all, the
place where the horizon begins its presence: the house of the horizon.
conscious of the tremendous significance that decision has for the future
happiness of its inhabitants. It recalls
those Vitruvian texts that narrate how the sites for the settlement of new
cities were decided upon in Rome.
The terrain had numerous possibilities, but the genius loci whispered to architect,
telling him to set the house on a specific spot. A quiet place, far enough from the city for
the house to have the quality that a villa has in Italy: a place at a suitable
distance from the city to allow the cultivated urban man to contemplate
nature. Thanks to this necessary
distance, its solitude, the house meets the requisites as villa in relation to
the city of Salamanca, and perhaps shortly, when
the train line currently under construction is completed, in relation to Madrid.
The spot where the house is situated is the highest
point of a hill that slopes gently on its northern side and drops sharply
towards the Castilian plateau on the south.
It rises on a flat and infinite landscape that has the Gredos and Gata
mountain ranges as a backdrop about 100 kilometers
away. From its inception, the house
sought to appropriate that distant horizon in order to give it back to its
inhabitants as a gift.
Topography, biology and orientation constitute a very
important part of architecture’s space- hence the importance of the choice of
place—and they are important to this house as well. Its access from the nearest road is arduous,
consisting of a rocky dirt path some 700 meters long that winds through an oak woods
and ends in a clearing. When one reaches
the top of the hill, there is a rocky area from which one can see that what on
its north side appears to be a hill, on its south becomes a promontory over the
plateau.
The project seeks to underline these spaces found in
the site in order to make them habitable in a home that looks expectantly
towards the distant horizon.
Therefore, the house has two scales: a small and
fragmented one on the north, east and west sides where the oak woods surrounds
it, and a large, open one on the south, facing the absolute presence of the
infinite horizon of the plain.
The house is reached by means of a platform
constructing a limit that unites the privacy of the home and the countryside
around it at the same time that it connects the nearby oak woods with the
distant plateau. So that a second scale
is established by the platform that serves the function of threshold to the
house, analogous to what the house is to the landscape. Seen from the countryside the platform forms
part of the house, while from the house, the access plane provides a frame for
the natural world. This interpretation
is helped by perception of the platform, seen from the outside, as a vertical,
constructed, artificial wall and by the knowledge, from the inside of the
house, of its horizontal plane. Frontality and horizontality, discontinuity and
continuity in space. In keeping with this ambivalence in the platform, on it,
the natural and the artificial are superimposed: the trees, water and rocks can
be made out along with the concrete podium.
And here, another of the characteristics of this house should be pointed
out: in it the controlled union of ineffable nature and the predictable and
abstract artifice of architecture has been sought.
The material with which the house has been constructed
varies according to the different function served. When it has a structural
function, the material is concrete and stone, to which steel is added to assist
wherever necessary. When the function is
not structural, the house is constructed of easily dismountable and therefore
replaceable materials: glass, tile, steel and wood. Thus the house presents a
double construction: a perennial part constructed to last – firmitas - to which the foundation and
structure belong, and the other part, of a more ephemeral and technical nature
built to change with the times – utilitas
-- that provides a specific answer to the function and to the
installations.
The house has a longitudinal and a perpendicular
development to the horizon; its vertical load-bearing structure consists of
load bearing walls of cyclopean concrete, except on the south prow, where four
metal cruciform pillars are located.
Over this structure, a 10,50 x 43 meter slab of reinforced concrete rests. The
structure underlines the space. The
succession of vertical load bearing walls in the northern area allows the
servicing and served spaces to be divided: the first, opening to patios between
walls and the second offering partial and lateral views of the
surroundings. However, the space opens
as it gets closer to the living and dining area in the south, until it reaches
a 180º open, horizontal and complete view of the Castilian plain.
Returning to the choice of materials, those belonging
to the place and with a lasting nature were sought. To achieve this proposition, rock from the
building excavation itself was used to make the cyclopean concrete. The process of constructing these walls was
the result of laborious research and experimentation that took place prior to
beginning work on the house. Constructive theory and logic were thus added to
the building definition. In this way,
after adding the formwork and wire mesh inside, the concrete was poured
simultaneously with rock from the area.
Once it had begun to set but before it was too hard, the concrete was
chipped away until the rock it contained was exposed in those areas where the
wall has the nature of severy; where the concrete must be protected in walls
containing load-bearing steel, small rocks were embedded as finish.
The constructed result consists of a lower and solid
part that is attached to the terrain, belonging to it. A stony volume, drawn only at its edges and
softer in between, constructed out of a material that in itself reveals the
nature of the place— its very stone--as well as the building culture of
reinforced concrete. Thanks to the rough
texture of the vertical walls, the surrounding nature recognizes them as its
own, allowing the lichen, moss and plants of the area to grow on them. These vertical walls contain air in the space
inside and are recipients of earth or stereotomics in the space outside:
volumes full of gravel extracted from a quarry situated only a few meters away
construct a new slope on the terrain, giving the house a double harmony: one
with the immediate natural surroundings and another with the distant horizon on
the south. On this platform, this new
soil- foundation rests the slab of the roof that is a cover against snow and
rain and provides the necessary shade so that the house is useful and beautiful
in both summer and winter.
The philosopher said that a space is something that
has been made habitable so it can be named by its limits, and a limit is not
what borders something but instead is the place where things begin to have
presence. As a reading of this concept
in the architectural space of the house, a relationship between the limit and
continuity and the edge and discontinuity of this space can be
established. The house, while being a
place in which fragments of controlled nature are framed, is, above all, the
place where the horizon begins its presence: the house of the horizon.
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