There were many ways to imagine this house in Sabadell, but we conceived it around a central oasis inspired by the courtyards of Cordoba and ancient cloisters. An architecture defined by light that seeks calm and privacy.
A family we know well asked us to design their home in Sabadell with very clear priorities: they want well-being and tranquility, without ostentation. We decided to propose a two-story program and organize life around a central bioclimatic courtyard. A generous void where a tree visually connects all the rooms.
On the ground floor is the day area: parking, a study for remote work, the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, and a bathroom. On the first floor is the night area: the children's bedrooms, with their bathroom, open to the street and the interior courtyard through a games-study room. The couple's bedroom, with a dressing room and suite-type bathroom, overlooks the interior courtyard, the terrace, and the garden.
But how can a house make the most of a wide and generous plot? This project is not explained by any restriction, but by a shared idea of what it means to live well.
An interior courtyard is what gives the house extra value. The luxury here is nothing more than having more facades, more windows, more ventilation, and more light. There is even a tree, a Liquidambar styraciflua, whose branches and leaves can be seen from any point inside.
The construction is made with load-bearing masonry walls and CLT and CLT-MIX slabs (large-format cross-laminated wood panels). We could talk again about the hygrothermal qualities of wood, its low carbon footprint, the inertia provided by the polished concrete floor, or the fact that the house's energy demand is below the Passivhaus standard. All of that is there, but it is not what we are interested in explaining. If you want to delve deeper into these topics, you can read our blog or other published projects.
This time, we prefer to talk about the virtues of having a courtyard inside the house. A courtyard with an awning that regulates sun exposure and allows for a microclimate of maximum comfort in both winter and summer, like a Cordoban patio. Notice that each area has windows to the exterior and, at the same time, windows to this interior bioclimatic courtyard. Standard-sized windows that, together, become a gesture in memory of the cloisters of immemorial buildings.
We prefer to talk about a master bedroom with an unconventional bathroom and dressing room with access to the terrace and views of the garden and the courtyard. Waking up every morning in this space is a good way to start the day well.
We prefer to explain that the children's bedrooms are connected to each other and open to a common space that is now a play area and will later be their study. When the children are older, the rooms can be separated, but they will maintain the shared study with access to the courtyard, and the peace transmitted by the tree will help them concentrate.
We prefer you to notice that the house's vestibule is located between the staircase and the courtyard and that, symbolically, it incorporates a bench to take off your shoes and go barefoot.
We prefer you to look at the custom-made sofa with leftover pieces from the wood panels and how it adapts to the courtyard windows, generating storage corners for books and a place to charge the mobile phone.
We prefer you to see the porcelain luminaires that come from Sweden (Ifö elèctric), elegant, timeless, and almost unnoticeable.
We prefer to enjoy the pool and a garden where Lippia nodiflora has been planted, replacing the green plastic deserts of other developments.
We could talk about more hidden tricks in every decision and every detail we have designed. They are not magic tricks, but a desire to do things well. But, for now, we will not explain everything; we will do it later.
