Formentera, Spain
Located on an agricultural plot on the Spanish island of Formentera, Es Pou House is a home designed by Lorena Ruzafa and Marga Ferrer of Marià Castelló Architecture comprising three volumes arranged from more public to more private, separated by voids for light and ventilation.
“Es Pou de Can Marianet Barber” is a historical place in the interior of the island of Formentera, Spain.
As the first insertion of a small residence in the territory, this house sits on a rural plot with several pre-existent conditions.
Among the pre-existing elements is a network of centenarian dry stone walls, which organize the crops as well as stand out for their beauty.
The intervention is located in the western area of the plot, parallel to a trace of walls more than a kilometer in length.
The house is oriented to the south and protected from the sun by a mass of vegetation.
This placement releases the most fertile area of the plot to continue to maintain its existing agricultural activity.
The house’s volume is divided into three distinct volumes, ordering the program, while providing for a smaller grain in accordance with the scale of the landscape.
From south to north, the first volume houses a porch that offers solar protection.
The second volume contains the more public program, and the third volume contains the two bedrooms.
Between the volumes are transverse ‘strips’ that physically separate and mark the transitions, allowing for ventilation and lighting, while also providing services and connections.
In front of the house, there is a cistern that provides a self-sufficient water supply and a Solaris for the colder months of the year.
Throughout the front of the house and through the porch, deep perspectives are created that reach out toward the flat landscape of wheat and oat fields.
Soft and warm colors of the earth and muted green tones of the almond and fig trees dominate.
These colors, the lights, and the materials of the outside enter the interior spaces through the use of complimentary ceramics and wood, two noble materials combined here in a subtle and timeless way.
Mallorcan-style ceramic vaults and pressed terracotta tiles extend the warmth of the earth onto the ceiling and pavements of the home.
Similarly, the tiles are used to solve various other design elements, such as façade cladding, roof finish, the headboard of the master bedroom, or pebble gravel.
The architects thus repurposed in-situ the leftover ceramic elements in new ways.
The freshness of the vegetation predominates in the more humid parts of the house, where some walls are covered with vitrified ceramic tiles of a pale green color.
Light filters inward through ceramic lattices, generating a constant evolution of light and shadow.
The coherence in material harmony led to white vitrified porcelain electrical mechanisms installed in unique places, such as the headboard of the master bedroom, as well as other more common uses, such as lamp holders and toilets.
A set of lights and special pieces made by hand with formwork made by the studio were also specifically designed for this project, seeking their chromatic and dimensional integration in the context of the coatings.
Most of the furniture has been custom-designed and integrated into the architecture itself, while icons such as the Torres Clavé armchair, from 1934, or the traditional chairs from Formentera pay homage to the Mediterranean artisan tradition.
Other more contemporary pieces such as the table and coffee tables from the D12 collection designed by Marià Castelló and Lorena Ruzafa for the editor Diabla Outdoor, provide a slight material and chromatic counterpoint to the set.
Project: Es Pou House in Formentera
Architects: Marià Castelló Architecture
Design Team: Lorena Ruzafa and Marga Ferrer
Technical Architect: Javier Colomar Riera
Client: Private
Images Courtesy of the Architects