Vallvidrera House

House in Vallvidrera. Residential project. (+)

Photos by Marcela Grassi.

The house is situated in the Vallvidrera neighborhood, a residential area with views overlooking the city of Barcelona, surrounded by the Collserola natural park, in a very sloped and small plot situated between a valley and a pine forest.

The objectives of the project were to get the maximum possible building area within a tight budget and an optimized orientation of all openings while protecting the privacy of the owners.

To achieve this, a compact three level volume was created. The geometry arises directly from the plot given geometry and slope, reinterpreting the aesthetic of the site’s vernacular architecture with its sloped roof, widening on the upper floors to gain some additional area.

Formally the volume is a single cube in which every face has been divided into four quadrants. The upper faces are extruded upwards to form the roof. The side faces rotate to frame significant scenic moments, mindful of the neighbors’ privacy.

The façade consists of a continuous skin that provides the same matt white aspect to walls, roofs and openings. The fixed windows are made of glass panes totally flush with the façade, and the operating ones have a white perforated aluminum shutter also installed flush with the skin.

A perforated Corten steel front fence at the low end of the plot gives pedestrian and car access to the property.

The exterior spaces are formed by two terraces and the sloped areas have been modeled forming triangulated ramps. Pavements are made in multicolored slat, typical of this area, using long narrow tiles for the plane zones, and smaller irregular pieces on sloping ones.

The entrance level is composed by the first dormitory, the bath and the kitchen with a dining room area. The kitchen is in a double height space with two large windows that offer the best views over the valley. In the upper level there is the master bedroom and its bath, both oriented to the pine forest at the back side of the plot. The semi-buried lower floor is formed by the technical and storage rooms, a living room and a studio both with access to the garden.

In the interior of the house the floors and bathroom walls are covered with Capri natural stone and the walls and doors are finished in ivory white color paint. In the double height area, large built-in dark tinted elm furniture builds the kitchen and dining area wall furniture and the island, ascending to the upper floor to form the master dormitory cupboards.