An old stable in Spain turned into a small house | Sauquet Arquitectes

August 30, 2012

Architect Roger Sauquet designed this adaptive reuse of an old brick stable in Castellar del Vallés, Spain, not far from Barcelona. The building’s 55 m² (592 ft²) floor plan was sufficient for a large living room, an eat-in kitchen with built-in seating, one bedroom and a small office.

Sauquet employed several techniques to make the small home seem more spacious. These can all be seen in the photo above. The kitchen and living room are placed on a diagonal at opposite corners of the house, maximizing the length of the site-lines between them. Most of the walls stop short of the ceiling, blurring the boundaries between rooms. The bookshelves separating the living room from the bedroom beyond also stop short of the outside wall, expanding both rooms while maintaining privacy for the bedroom. The dividers between office and living area and between kitchen and entrance consist of shelves open to both sides. They separate the spaces while allowing limited views between them. The office in particular benefits from the views and light offered by the patio doors in the living room.

Two sets of patio doors lead to a large terrace. The south-facing doors are protected from the summer sun by large shades supported by a steel framework. In winter the shades can be removed for passive solar heating.