Description
This villa by the architects Sancho and Madridejos is surrounded by open, partly steppe-like hilly countryside. A lavish house was planned, with swimming-pool, a chapel, a keeper’s house and a hunting lodge. Only the house and the chapel have been built so far. The buildings are to be carefully positioned to relate to each other as ‘objects’ in the landscape, on the access route through the plot. The disposition was balanced in terms of topographical, but especially also from spatial and perspective viewpoints. The chapel was placed somewhat to one side, though at the highest point. It is the first building to be visible from the drive.
As the terrain slopes down to the north and opens up an expansive view, the main living-room, a rectangular area glazed to its full height, was placed on the north side. It is intended to be a kind of glass body that seems to have been thrust into the solid stone mass of the villa. In fact the architects are developing the design concept of the ‘folded’ building mass, as the flat roof area forms a unit with wall and pedestal. The intention is that this solid exposed concrete frame is to ‘fold out’ powerfully to form a transition from two to three dimensions.
Three different zones are clearly defined between the pedestal and roof slab, separated by corridors: the bedroom area, the kitchen with servants’ rooms and the living section with an attached terrace across its full width. A basement storey for a variety of uses is placed below the living area, and is the same size. Here living and access enter into an unusual partnership, as the entrance with its courtyard and the sight axis through the glazed body become an exterior component of the living space. Homogeneous exposed concrete with rough shuttering forms a contrast with smooth rendered surfaces and top-quality stonework, underlining the design concept. The ideas of ‘folded’ wall sections also applies to the chapel, which is entirely in reinforced concrete. Here, however, an asymmetrical and sculptural form is created on a rectangular base, to demarcate the living area, but also as a signal for the effect from a distance.
Drawings
Site plan
Axonometric diagram with the position of the living room and logia inside the building
Lower floor with studio, apartment and ancillary room
Ground floor with living area, separate bedroom area and domestic wing with servants rooms
Cross section through the access courtyard, living room and studio below
Photos
View from the north-west with Chapel
Interior view of the living room from the east with fireplace sculpture
Originally published in: Klaus-Peter Gast, Living Plans: New Concepts for Advanced Housing, Birkhäuser, 2005.