A house in Nigran, Spain. The architecture seen as "space between," transitions on the journey home

The architects at studio Castroferro have always had a particular interest in transitions, the events that occur between two acts. Here in the House in Nigran they think of the dwelling as the final point of rest to which one arrives: the concept of returning home guides their design and is materialized in the attention to the path one takes. Thus, the places of passage, the thresholds, where one is about to... take on fundamental importance

After the impact with the building as a whole, which feels solid and closed, raw, one encounters the threshold of the house, that protected place before the entrance, but which is already part of it. The threshold speaks of the house itself, with its pine door referring to the footprints of the formwork that decorates all the concrete of this architecture. The entrance that follows is converted into a walkway that accompanies inside the house and offers alternatives of views that are both architectural and natural: the cork oak courtyard or a landscape of small shrubs

Continuing, the staircase, linking the three levels of the house, closes this first atmosphere, the cork oak courtyard area remains behind in order to present a new aspect of relationship with the outside that is the west side of the dwelling. Here we find the end of the path of "coming home" : in the large living room, clear and sharp; in the texture of the facade that with the play of openings connects in an extreme way with the outside

Castroferro architects attentive to inner dynamics also design a place for retreat because the mood is changeable, and an intimate, introverted, collected place is necessary. And it is found there, where that courtyard that offered tree tops at the entrance to welcome, now gathers with three powerful concrete walls to create a patio, the classic Spanish transitional place. A granite staircase offers itself to facilitate the events that can happen there, from the joy of the group to the moment of solitude

The project in its materialization seeks deliberate precision and a sparse palette of materials, with reinforced concrete driving the entire project with its imprinted pattern of formwork replicated in the pine of the woodwork. Some imposing and precious pieces of granite resolve the rest, either with a beautiful fluting when on the facade or, that same stone in large slabs for the floors across large parts of the house