la primera

vivienda de muros gruesos en tiempos de fachadas finas
maresme, barcelona

2025 

The dwelling is located in a municipality in the Maresme region, at the threshold between the historic center and a low-density residential development built just before the real estate boom. This context—largely composed of single-family houses in a generic architectural language—coexists with former farmhouses and the material memory of the historic core. The plot, one of the last undeveloped in the area, preserved century-old Mediterranean trees, adopted as the project’s initial structural framework.

The house is organized through a modular grid of three equivalent rectangles, positioned in response to the trees and solar orientation. This system enables spatial continuity for shared living while allowing fragmentation that ensures privacy and future adaptability. Two intermediate courtyards provide optimal daylight and orientation to all spaces, enhance cross-ventilation in summer, and support solar gain in winter.

The building is conceived as a masonry envelope of variable thickness depending on orientation. Load-bearing walls filled with local earth, ceramic layers, ceramic flooring, and ceramic vaults form a massive construction with high thermal inertia.

The energy strategy relies on passive principles—thermal mass, solar control, and natural ventilation—eliminating the need for active cooling in summer. Without formal gestures, the house proposes an alternative mode of construction within a homogeneous setting, based on simple, recognizable solutions, where simplicity itself becomes a form of permanence.