Trespaderne, Burgos, Spain
Carefully designed by Atienza Maure Arquitectos with landscape architects Mingo Basarrate – Estudio de paisajismo, El Priorato is the renovation of a former priest’s house from the 16th century into a vacation house in Burgos, Spain.
Destroyed in a fire that only spared its stone walls, a large house in the Castilian region has been refurbished through the insertion of a structure that replicates and completes the original.
Between new arches of white concrete, skylights seek to bring brightness deep into the lower spaces of the building through a second stairwell, which skilled workers of the comarca placed right beside the old one.
The project consists of the rehabilitation of a Castilian mansion from the XVI Century that had burned in a fire in 2011.
Only the stone walls, the staircase with a vault and the voussoirs of the collapsed arches remained.
The building had formerly been used as the residence of the prior of the Monastery of Oña.
The north façade is buried by the unevenness of Calle Mayor, the ground floor was uninhabitable, without natural light or direct contact with the orchard on the south face.
The first intention of the project was to introduce this natural light that was lacking without disturbing the historic stone facades too much.
It seemed to us that the best way to do this was through five skylights that cross the intermediate floors to the common areas on the ground floor.
These skylights open onto two large atriums from where parallel stairs run; the original stone and a new steel and concrete one of the same width.
This allows configuring a sequence of spaces on different levels, illuminated from above and framed by stone and concrete arches.
The next intention was to form a project based on structural, material, and spatial systems similar to the ruin that had been found, to generate that continuity with the pre-existing but clearly marking the subsequent interventions.
The new elements that do not contain analogies with the originals are treated as light pieces of steel and wood, with systems that combine traction and compression as structural balance games.
The constructive solutions have been raised following the maxim of Adolf Loos of the architect as a mason who knows Latin, in a constant dialogue with the workers of the region.
It is a house that multiplies the routes, enhances cross views and exploration, fosters a playful and hedonistic experience of space.
Space with multiple qualities that allows it to be constantly reappropriated without being tied to a specific and closed function.
Project: El Priorato
Architects: Atienza Maure Arquitectos
Design Team: Alonso Atienza, Miguel A. Maure, Pablo Hernando, and Juan Muñoz
Landscape Architects: Mingo Basarrate – Estudio de paisajismo
Client: Private
Photographer: Simone Bossi
