MESURA: Casa IV - best architects 17

MESURA

Casa IV

best architects 17

single family homes

Place

Spain

Studio

www.mesura.eu

Description

A new extension, sheltered under a vaulted mantle, gives new life to this house in the countryside outside of Matola (Elche) with its warm and humid climate and arid and sunny landscape. Exceeding the requirements of the brief, the architects designed a large covered outdoor patio, a new room and a multipurpose room. Reinterpreting the local building tradition, the bold strategy uses a unitary roof system to break down the hierarchy between interior and exterior. Brick walls filter light and heat to lend each space a pleasant and airy atmosphere. They supply texture and a warm ambience as they organise the spaces, responding to the hot and humid climate. The floor plan as well blurs the indoor-outdoor distinction, giving ambiguous spaces new prominence. A single deck, interrupted only by the presence of a tree watching over it stoically, unifies all the new interventions. The radical strategy of the project is also its key feature – focusing not on anthropomorphic measures but on actual user needs. Rather than imposing a theoretical system of modular proportions, the aim is to better meet the expectations of the client: by definition the ultimate goal of architecture.