Viva la Vega House’s, in Albolote, design was driven by the agricultural background of the clients, their childhood memories and their contemporary needs. SERRANO + BAQUERO office’s team, designed a simple plan and delivered a careful construction.  The plan of the house was created by several sections exploring the relationship and the limits of the plot and the surroundings, the light and the views, while the volume and the aesthetic was inspired by the old local tobacco drying houses. Concrete and ceramic brick were used as the main materials.
-text by the editor

Horacio and Vanesa’s childhood memories are linked to the fertile plain of Granada, what we call Vega; the murmur of the irrigation channels, the coolness in the shade of the poplars, the materiality and the light inside the tobacco dryhouses or the distant landscape of Sierra Nevada.

In 2017, after acquiring a plot near Albolote, at the foot of the Tajo Colorao and in front of an olive grove, they commissioned us to build a house with the wish that we would try to link that agricultural image of the Vega that resided in their memory, with their needs. The plot has narrow proportions, a situation aggravated by the existence of an easement for use of the person that takes care of the irrigation ditches on one of the long sides. This route is necessary to carry out the daily maintenance of the ditch that adjoins one of the short sides.

The balance between the wishes and the memories of an agricultural nature of the clients with their needs was materialized through the elements present in the place and in the neighboring agricultural infrastructures. A poplar plantation arises in the entrance and an elevated ditch goes over from the entrance of the house to the pool. A large sunny orchard area is set up next to a pergola for relaxation. Among these elements and in relation to them, the house emerges with a simple but careful construction, which shows concrete and ceramic brick as the main materials.

The project tried to respond to the geometry of the plot by adopting an elongated configuration, which is reminiscent of tobacco drying houses.

This situation allowed an interesting relationship and exchange between the two long facades, due to their proximity. We proposed a series of sections that responded to the different boundary conditions depending on their position. Thus, opaque walls of different heights appeared, covered with different slopes, skylights, brick lattices and windows depending on the opportunity for distant views, direct entry or filtered light, the presence of nearby buildings, the contact with the ditch or the orchard and the need for privacy.

It was our intention that in certain points of the house there would be views that would cross it completely, allowing light, air, the sound of water and the gaze to pass through the space contained inside. Vanesa, Horacio, Marco and Mauro could traverse the volume longitudinally, through the sections that follow one another and establish changing spatial relationships according to the hours of the day and the seasons.

The Viva la Vega house serves as a manifesto and transmitting element of the love that clients profess to this agricultural territory to their two children, allowing them to enjoy an atmosphere similar to the one they enjoyed in their childhood.

Credits & Details

Project: ‘Viva la Vega house’
Office: SERRANO + BAQUERO
Architects: Paloma Baquero Masats, Juan Antonio Serrano García
Location: Albolote, Granada
Construction date: 2021
Collaborators: Loriano Giannone, Lorenzo Rechioni
Technical engineer: Javier Sánchez Fernández
Developers: Vanesa Moreno Torres, Horacio Luzón Hurtado
Structure: Miguel Ángel Jiménez Dengra
Installations: Cristóbal Ariza
Photographs: Fernando Alda

SERRANO + BAQUERO
Paloma Baquero Masats
Juan Antonio Serrano García
[email protected]
tlfn: 669848204