Project: Balint House
Architects: Fran Silvestre Arquitectos
Location: Betera, Spain
Area: 8,309 sf
Photographs by: Diego Opazo
Balint House by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos
Fran Silvestre Arquitectos is a studio that has already made a few appearances on our website with their awesome contemporary designs such as the Breeze House in Castellón, Spain and the Hollywood Hills Residence in LA. And now, we’re back with another one of their contemporary residences in Spain, in the Betera region of Valencia to be more exact.
The Balint House is incredibly unique, as is immediately noticeable from its exterior shape. It is designed to make the most out of the location’s prime placement, within a golf course, and to also leave a lot of space for a beautiful garden.
A privileged place within a golf course near to Valencia is the starting point of this project.
The proposal is drawn with elliptical traces which contain the program and maximize the possibilities of local urban law by minimizing the volumetric impact on the site. Thus, a piece with a continuous façade that seems to lodge only one floor is set on the site. The aerodynamic visuals of it guide the eye towards the deepness of the neighbouring landscape.
The volume is placed leaving as much free surface as possible towards the southern edge of the plot for it to be used as a garden, while the lateral limits are blurred with vegetation. The other elements that compose the urbanization resemble the curved nature of the place’s topography.
The inner space of the house is articulated through a central void which contains communications. Service spaces, installations and the kitchen are used to orthogonalize the curved trace of the lower floor, which opens to the garden. The upper floor with the rooms and the underground, opened to the patio, provide the house with more bounded spaces.
Four concrete supports on the lower floor hold the arched roof, from which the room’s floor hangs. This structure is covered by a monolithic, ventilated façade, which is realized with a Solid Surface with a simple curve that doesn’t require thermoforming to adapt to the geometry of the piece. The rest of materials used in the construction range from white to black, covering all scales of grey.
Other explanations can be superposed to this description, as the carpet of light which transforms the inside of the house as the hours go by.
