LOCATION DETAILS:
The renovated single family house is situated in the historic city centre
of La Laguna, declared by UNESCO in 1999 the cultural heritage of humanity.
The building is situated between party walls and is designed as a
single-family house, with two floors above ground level.
Its composition is simple and represents a worthy exponent of traditional
domestic urban architecture of the eighteenth century in the Canary Islands.
As for its section, the original housing
has two floors in its first volume and one floor in the rest of the rooms. The
supporting structure consists of load-bearing walls carrying a pitched roof
finished in Moorish tiles, in the traditional manner.
The house was found in a dilapidated state
due to abandonment it has suffered for decades.
Analyzing the plan, it had shown that the
first two volumes were part of the original construction, while the other
buildings were added later. It is noteworthy that the second volume has been
amended several times so that it carries no architectural value.
Program needs:
The building to be refurbished was
destined for residential use in the form of single-family house. All units
allowed the realization of the assigned function.
Under the program needs requested by the
property, on the ground floor the house is made up of an entrance hall, a
kitchen, a covered patio, a living-dining room, a double bedroom with wardrobe
and bathroom, a storage under stairs, a bathroom and a study.
Top floor provides a living room, a
bathroom, a service room and two bedrooms connected with the terrace.
Architectural
solution:
Following the guidelines of the Special
Plan for Protection, the first volume of the building is being preserved in the
project. It was restored in terms of its architectural values and renovated in
order to guarantee the basic requirements that a housing of today demands. The
rest of the designed building has a new plan and is articulated with the
historical part through a patio.
The access to the house is from the Cabrera
Pinto street, through a spacious entry hall, which at the same time gives
access to the kitchen, the study and a bathroom. Next, the staircase and the
covered patio form a connection space both in the vertical plan, spatially
communicating the two floors, and the horizontal plan, as they represent a threshold
that serves as a transition to the rooms in the new part of the building.
Continuing the route on the ground floor, behind the patio and connected with
it by sliding doors, the living-dining room is being placed, visually opening
itself to the backyard. Next to the living room and at the property’s request
the master bedroom is found, with a dressing room and its own bathroom.
Once the wooden structures of the floor
and cover, which were in an advanced state of deterioration, were renovated,
upstairs, in what could be the granary of the pre-existing building, the main
hall of the house was arranged. It should be mentioned in a reference to the
cover, that because of its low construction quality (made from rough wooden
sticks, that directly receive an Arabic tiled cover) it was necessary to
conduct a complete replacement of the wooden structure, always preserving its
type and arrangement presented as sufficient to persecute. Tiles, that were in
a good condition, were arranged as an exterior part of the roof to keep the old
look and the chromatic uniformity of the roof. The current hole of an access to
this room, was expanded in aim to obtain a window that would allow viewing the
interior structure of the cover from the patio. In this sense, the patio
becomes the leading element of the building, allowing spatial understanding of
itself. The remaining rooms of the higher floor are: two bedrooms with an
access to the terrace, a bathroom and a laundry room, both with ventilation and
natural lighting through skylights located in the deck.
On the flat, not passable roof of the new
part of the building there was arranged a place for technical facilities, which
in this way would minimize its visual impact.
Formally, from the lecture of the
traditional architecture of La Laguna, there appeared an intention to give a
strong character of simplicity to the new built piece. We understand, that the
neutrality of the contemporary object enables its coexistence with the
historical context.
To favor the natural lighting of the house
was another one of initial premises of this project, in order to counteract the
shady consequence of its position between buildings of greater height and its
development in a depth.
The blind panels of the back facade, in
contrast to large glazed openings, define its compositional lines.
Finishing materials have the same
objective: screens of concrete, white painted plaster and black aluminium matt
on the carpentry.
The duality that occurs between the
two historical moments of the building is seen as a respectful dialogue between
them. The project’s aim was to make this contrast of languages become an added
value of a new construction, as described in beautiful words of Octavio Paz
(1914-1998):
"The search for modernity led us to
discover our antiquity ...
I am not sure whether
this unexpected historical lesson has been learnt by all: between tradition and
modernity there is a bridge. When they are mutually isolated, tradition
stagnates and modernity vaporizes; when in conjunction, modernity breathes life
into tradition, while the latter replies with depth and gravity.”
Alejandro Beautell, Architect.