BLOG | ArchPAPERS Digital books and magazines

Box of lights and shadows.
The project started out as a project commissioned by an elderly retired couple, who needed a place for themselves, their children and their nieces, their children having different statuses: one, married with daughters and the other, single, one a dependent and the other, independent. Grandparents who enjoyed spending time with their nieces and who also loved reading books and more books, a heritage of their teaching past.
The intense light is the main material used to build this house, which is a diagonal construction penetrated by diagonal light.
We wanted to build a simple, neat house, where to live as one pleased.
We started by considering the differences. The aim was to find difference in what is alike. The idea, based on simple gestures, was to create a place that could evolve over immediate and far-off time; an eternal trace.
The plot was fenced with walls, like an open box facing towards the universe, with a white “H” in the centre.
Given the site and orientation, we decided to find a diagonal space created by the connection of two spaces joined with double heights; a space opening up to the landscape, thereby obtaining a space that, rather than having a double height, incorporates a quality that is still surprising. The light which penetrates from above through a large skylight marking the course of the sun towards the south causes this space to become alive.
The house opens up to the patio, by means of a large cleft that offers a panoramic view framed by shade. The terrain extends towards the exterior, forming a platform that is as large as the house itself, and touches the water. The principal operation is completed and the house opens its eyes to the landscape in different ways. In the library, which is higher up, a large square opens up that frames and evaluates the landscape.
In terms of composition, the house has the shape of an “H” divided into two halves, or rather into three equal parts. One third contains the living areas such as the lounge, dining-room and kitchen. Another third contains not only the vertical structures, but also the more private areas: the bedrooms and bathrooms. The last third, the library, is arranged in an elementary manner. The construction is simple and finished in white, as everything is in the south. An architecture such as the one proposed by J. Quetglas, based on imagination and not illusion, one that does not commence with illustrations but just happens. Building senses, and not theories that guide one’s life, but reading.
The house must enforce silence, it must not speak. Architecture must interrogate, not write.
Achieving what is described by J. Pawson; protecting oneself from all ostentation or pretentiousness or from things that are there for superfitial reasons. Truth put on an equal footing with purity and clarity.

PARRÓN-ORTIZ HOUSE | Melendo y Parrón Arquitectos, S.L.
Olivares, Sevilla – SPAIN
[9] EXCEPTIONAL SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES

PREVIEW MAGAZINE

Pages: 114 / 131