A house built to enjoy the Prades mountains

Walking is surely the best way to get to know and understand a place. Traveling through the beauty of the Prades Mountains and the fields of olive groves and vineyards at their feet in Les Garriges, Lleida, led interior designer Alfred García Gotós to this village house in El Vilosell, dating back to 1700. The landscape drew him there. And in the comprehensive renovation, he has brought that landscape into the home. This is a professional and personal project, as García Gotós designed it for himself and his family. As a year-round vacation home, with the intention of gradually living there more frequently.

The natural and agricultural environment has become one of the main drivers of contemporary architectural renovations in rural areas. In this case, the house's strategic location on the edge of the urban center made it feasible. While the main facade facing the town square has remained virtually intact, the rear facade, facing the mountain range, opens profusely to it after the renovation. The ground floor houses the living area, fully glazed where it meets the rear courtyard. The opening extends eight meters from side to side. And the courtyard, with native vegetation, becomes a key and progressive transition towards the backdrop of the Prades Mountains.

On the upper floor, the master bedroom once again overlooks the mountains through generous vertical openings. To enhance the view, even with one's back to the windows, García Gotós devised other features: mirrored panels enclose some cubicles, housing bathroom elements, and intended to reflect the view and enhance the atmosphere. The shower volume, delimited by a smoked glass wall, offers a splendid panoramic view under the running water.

After the renovation, the new home is framed by an architecture that pays homage to stone. The two original side walls of the house between party walls take center stage. It's a masonry stone of humble origins, restored and now glorified. The project minimized the visible elements precisely to highlight it. In the living area, the superlative kitchen island (5 m long) stands out, while the remaining features are hidden behind paneled doors, forming a continuous surface. The same is true in the living room, with the television and the chimney vent.

The upper bedrooms follow the same principle. Various closets, designed as freestanding cubic modules that don't reach the ceiling, help to trace the paths. They have been painted a light beige in keeping with the stone tone. "I wanted to respect the original architecture, which is why the dividing stone walls are all free and exposed," notes García Gotós. "I'm interested in native architecture. We haven't added a single stone here." This has also meant leaving old niches embedded in the masonry, vestiges of beams from the previous floor or logs where farm implements were hung, and even an old wooden screw from a village oil press, once reused as a beam. A horseshoe embedded in the wall, once a drying area, indicates good fortune. These are elements integrated into the whole today that can go unnoticed, although a careful look will reveal them.

“I would like to experience the space without anything,” says García Gotós. The interior designer finds some of his inspirations in British minimalism and authors such as Pawson and Chipperfield. At the beginning of the project, however, he had in mind above all the house that Danish architect Jørn Utzon designed in Mallorca in 1971 for his family, known as Can Lis. “Following Utzon's thinking when he started that house, I also wanted to simplify and find this spirit so close to our Mediterranean culture… which is practically the essence,” he explains. However, this synthesis required resolving many construction details, making the project more complex. With minimal furniture and lightweight lighting systems, such as Castiglione's Parentesi model, he strives to “not contaminate.” A modus operandi that ultimately infuses all the rooms of the house with an unusual tranquility.

Stone is also about temperature. That's why the interior designer chose travertine for the pool surround and pergola area. Thanks to its porosity, it's one of the few varieties that stays cool, even when exposed to hours of sunlight. "The Romans were very clever," he notes, referring to their extensive use of it. He chose the Italian stone for its soft hazelnut hue.

At the beginning of the 21st century, and with the opening of a new life, this house has undergone a profound structural transformation. The three previous floors are combined into one. The new ground-floor roof, with ceramic vaulting and concrete beams, is plastered and painted to hide the joints and create a continuous appearance that does not detract from the stonework. The bedrooms enjoy the old original beams, previously blocked by the gulfs, and now another identifying sign of rurality for the contemporary eye. The design of the staircase is a key element in the layout and dimensions of the rooms. It results in the generous 3.80 m height of the dining room-kitchen. And as you descend, you can gradually glimpse the Prades landscape.

Estudi Alfred García Gotós, which includes architects in its office, has sought to provide the house with "a balance between modernity and heritage. And to emphasize the spatial fluidity and integration with the surroundings." In its combination of traditional and contemporary elements, it presents itself as an ecological house, both in the choice of natural materials (wood, lime paints, linen) and in the climate control strategies: cross ventilation, aerothermal energy, underfloor heating, and a fireplace with a heat recovery system.

Large slabs of Les Garrigues stone form a textured natural carpet that welcomes and greets visitors. The space spans the entire width of the façade and also serves as Alfred García Gotós's studio. Here, when not designing interiors or walking through landscapes, he creates sculptures from stones, pieces of wood, and iron fragments found during construction and demolition projects. These pieces, he describes as art trouvé and povera, expand his interior universe by assembling new relationships.