The Lead Architect Esteve Torres Pujol and his team design a modern family house behind a garage door. The main concern of the design is the openness of the space which is achieved by the form of the floor plan but at the same time the sustainability of the building through the materials that have been used.

-text by the architects

It’s not a garage!

A common garage door accompanied in the composition by a round hole is what we find on the main façade and the truth is that it does not clarify at all how the building works, nor what is its use or program.

The reality is that behind the door there is a family house between party walls located in Ciutadella, on the island of Menorca.

Once through the door, the access path to the house leads through an idyllic pseudo-open outdoor space, with a wooden pergola placed at double height that protects us on our initial journey. From this space we can see the real façade of the house that is 7 m setback from the public road.

Therefore, this indicates that the volume of the house is located in the middle of the plot, in this way privacy is achieved in the openings of the façade and, above all, it allows to regulate the temperature inside thanks to the quality cross ventilation that is enjoyed throughout the house.

As it is a plot nestled between two dividing walls without too much separation between them, it was decided that a sole living-dining-kitchen space be located on the ground floor that covers the entire width of the plot and communicates with the rear garden through a porch.  Two large windows, one that looks out towards the back garden and the other towards the access patio, open accordion-style and thanks to them, this entire interior space can function as if it were an even larger porch when they are fully open.

On the first floor there is a bedroom with its bathroom and its terrace, a dressing room and an office (also with a terrace). An art workshop has been projected on the second floor.

The vertical communication core has located in the middle of the built volume in order to economize the surface of the corridors and distributors.

It consists of a folded sheet metal staircase with 2 sections between each floor. The railings have been specially designed for the home, they have been made with different wooden slats of variable section and have been placed alternately, turned one from the other, creating a game and a special movement that makes them unique.

In this project, the materials have been chosen with special sensitivity, valuing sustainability, origin and texture.

Proof of this can be seen in the kitchen, in the carpentry and in the cabinets. But it is necessary to point out with special interest the hexagonal clay tiles that have been chosen for the paving and tiling of the bathrooms. Pieces that stand out for their simplicity and that are so traditional in the popular architecture of the island as well as of the Mediterranean, that they already form a very important part of its history.

Facts & Credits

Project Title  CASA JULIÀ ORIOLA
Project Type  Residential 
Architects  ESTUDI E. TORRES PUJOL
Location  Ciudadela de Menorca, Spain
Area  265 m²
Year  2022
Photography  Adrià Goula


RELATED ARTICLES