PEREA-BOROBIO HOUSE
Location. Sevilla
Date. 2014-2015
Architects. Canales & Lombardero (Francisco González de Canales y Nuria Álvarez Lombardero)
Collaborating architect. Francisco González de Canales L.O.
Collaborators. Encarnación Márquez, Yonatan Buchhandler, Hao Wen Lim
Quantity Surveyor. Felipe Fernández de Bobadilla
Client.  Perea-Borobio Family

A retired couple of doctors decides to use their life savings to build a new house for them and their visiting sons and grandsons now living abroad. The clients want the house to be though for now and for generations to come, eventually inheriting the property. In search for flexibility and future change, the design invests on setting a clear spatial system around which adaptation might happen. This system is intended to organize not only service areas and installations, but also spatial relations, structure, light and energetic performance. In particular, the design deploys a system of brick cavity walls that articulate all relevant house spatial relations, while fluid inhabitation and variability is expected in-between them.  The walls are made of two interconnected layers of solid fire brick −a leftover from a cancelled local construction−, acting both as a structural support for the house and as a 35 cms thick building envelope of highly efficient energetic performance. In the public areas of the house brick walls —left un-cladded as well as the concrete slabs to better absorb energy flows— are slightly shifted. As such, they partially expose while not totally disclosing spaces behind. Displacements, perforations and sectional connections create a dense web of spatial relations that ground everyday life experiences. Material and light qualities of the house core elements are further explored through simulation and models. Finally, a double-height concrete portico highlight’s the client’s will to be seen.