- Client
- Private
- Location
- Ibiza, Spain
- Category
- Housing
- Interior Design with
- Anita Fraser
- Photography
- Carlota Alvarez, Jaime Font
- Video
- Armand Pou
- Renders
- Play-Time
In classical Roman religion, places were known to have a protective spirit. In contemporary architecture, we call this spirit “genius loci”, the historical-cultural-artistic identity of a site and its landscape, so vital to the process of placemaking and belonging.
For Casa Nandini, a new home in Ibiza, we reconciled a set of plans coming from the real estate industry with the island’s genius loci, taking the local building tradition and natural environment as the basis for a contemporary interpretation of “la casa ibicenca”.
GENIUS LOCI IN IBIZA: ARCHITECT JOSEP LLUÍS SERT DESCRIBES “LA CASA PAYESA IBICENCA”
Genius Loci is a sustainable approach to building and architecture based on each place’s culture, society, environment, and economy. Working with genius loci implies research and understanding of the vernacular architecture we build in as a means to incorporate local knowledge of arts & crafts, use of materials, climate, and construction techniques into a contemporary design. Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert was one of the first people to describe Ibiza’s genius loci, which he encountered in the island’s vernacular architecture.
The vernacular architecture of Ibiza is one of sober materials and simple forms, cubic rooms in human scale, functional, white, and without ornament. It’s an architecture that is uncontaminated, efficient, and, as a result, of unquestionable beauty. An architecture designed without plans and architects, constructed by farmers and artisans, built from the earth, out of necessity, and from a secular experience that organically corrects its mistakes.
USING VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE AS A DESIGN APPROACH
Located on the edge of a cliff, Casa Nandini was initially designed in the form of two enormous volumes (a home on the one side and visitor’s apartment and artist studio on the other), which stand in stark contrast to the language of the surrounding architecture and landscape. Following Sert’s “visión ibicenca”, we incorporated the traditional features of the island’s vernacular architecture, including flexibility, the juxtaposition of simple volumes which play with repetition and surprise, as well as a unity in scale in terms of composition.
Instead of two monolithic blocks, we proposed a conglomerate of volumes to open up the house to the surrounding views and create a series of three interior patios that connect the outside to the inside. Casa Nandini is a house that builds up organically, creating corners and turns that introduce shade, visual depth, and a dynamic living experience. The house offers places to be alone for every user, while a central porch makes for the heart of the home, a meeting point for people to come together.
“We investigated the local architecture and natural environment on our first visit to the site. On our second time on the island, we visited local artisans, exchanging knowledge and learning from their experience working with local materials and building methods.”
CASA NANDINI: AN ARCHITECTURE OF ADDITION
THAT REFLECTS ON THE USERS’ NEEDS
If working with genius loci implies research and understanding of the vernacular architecture, then Casa Nandini is the utmost natural outcome of working with Ibiza’s traditional way of building: out of the users’ needs. On the island, house plots usually nest more than one or two volumes (resulting in a curious, irregular plot plan), which indicates that time after time, people have felt the need to build up more spaces depending on their personal or professional needs.
In this sense, Casa Nandini is the echo of its inhabitants as it results in four different volumes: the living and family area (one volume divided in two), the guest pavilion, and the atelier. This compartmentation answers the users’ needs to connect the interiors with the exteriors and portray the Mediterranean way of living, host family and friends regularly, and build a multipurpose space to ponder and develop one’s creative mind.
ARCHITECTURE MADE FROM THE LAND IT INHABITS
Traditionally, the houses of Ibiza were constructed with materials that were present in situ; earth and stone, picked up almost literally from the floor, which makes for an architecture that is a part of the land it inhabits, connecting both intrinsically.
Following this singular simplicity of traditional building, the new volumes of the living spaces are constructed with the local, solid Marés stone, extracted in blocks of 40x40x80cm, which are positioned onto a pedestal that elevates the house (80cm), opening the view to the sea. Coated with manual ceramics, the pedestal creates continuity between the interior and exterior spaces, generating a sense of wholeness with the reddish earth of the surrounding plot.
The artist atelier is the only volume different from the rest of the house, located next to the pedestal and built in a mineral-based, natural limewash, another traditional material of the region.
