Igúzquiza

Architects: Beatriz Ciaurri Ramón López Neira
Igúzquiza, Spain
09/2013

A couple in their thirties with two kids decided to leave the city to live in the village, on a piece of land once cultivated by his father . Facing the slopes of Monjardín Peak where Paul’s sheep graze.

The work has been shared with the owners , which has led to significant savings in construction costs. They managed the guilds , carried out some of the elements of the job, did the masonry work with his brothers …

The village, with restrictive aesthetic regulations , is surrounded by a hypertrophied natural environment of great beauty .

The house contains two houses, born as a pre-existing . The intimate house ( bedroom volume ) and the social house ( living room and fireplace volume ) . Both are connected by a flat roof , the transposition of the field , which houses the servant spaces . The two volumes of stone and pitched roofs house the livings , monastic . Living with the basics, back to the luxury of generous space and nature.

The constructive differences between the different spaces of the house produces ” sensitive variations ” . It is the “breath” of the house. The stone volumes are built with 70 cm thick walls , pitched roofs and large openings with a solar control system tucked away, made out of adjustable and stackable wide planks . The horizontal space houses the kitchen , playground , bathrooms and laundry . It is built with a reinforced concrete slab supported on wooden columns that modulate the blind enclosure of the north-west façade made out of painted plywood panels with hemp insulation batts. It also modulates the southeast façade built with glass doors and fixed glazings that completely open up the kitchen area , the games room and part of the living room .

As an additional review of the place : the Santesteban Valley was, and is still a valley of farmers. Rain watered crops dominate, especially asparagus. The valley is crowned by Monjardín Peak , bounded by holm oak forests crossing the Way to Santiago and the Loquiz mountain range that marks horizontally the sky like a giant karstic wave to the West.