From ruin to home

On a narrow plot of land in Girona's historic center, where party walls stretch endlessly and light inside homes always seems scarce, architect Víctor Bouman—head of the studio Bouman Arquitectura, based in Girona and Llançà—came across one of these properties. What had once been an extremely long and narrow terraced house, over thirty meters deep and only four and a half meters wide, was, when they arrived, a veritable ruin: collapsed roofs, persistent dampness, damaged floors and cladding, and a very real feeling of being in a dark, endless tunnel.

The original house was organized into three sections. The main section, aligned with the street and formerly three stories—ground floor and two upper floors—was a single-story volume at the rear. Between the two was a narrower space connecting them to a tall, narrow courtyard that functioned more like a crack than a habitable area. All of this resulted in a solid, closed-off architecture with little room to breathe. Therefore, the renovation began with a clear idea: to reverse the feeling of confinement and bring light to every corner of the home. But also, and above all, to transform the way this home is lived in.

It used to be a tube; now it's a journey. To achieve this, Bouman lowered the height of the interior volumes—which now have one and two stories—and opened a new three-story courtyard within the main structure. A courtyard of light. Thus, along the thirty linear meters, a sequence of openings is created that breaks the oppressive continuity and introduces air, vegetation, and a glimpse of the sky and the light it emanates.

A house to walk through

Walking through the house today is a succession of entrances and exits, thresholds and discoveries. The small central courtyard, traversed by a porticoed corridor with vaults and stained glass windows, definitively dispels the notion of an endless passageway. The house unfolds in episodes, in shifting atmospheres within the monochrome palette created by the prevailing serene air. Light enters differently throughout the day—vertically at midday, more grazing in the morning and evening—transforming the materials into a kind of domestic clock that marks the passage of time.

The layout and uses complement this spatial narrative. On the ground floor, the living spaces open onto the patios—both the open-air one and the light well with its staircase and balconies—and also onto the surrounding countryside. The kitchen and living room connect with the green spaces, and daily life spills out onto the outdoors when the weather permits. The first floor houses the parents' rooms—bedroom, bathroom, and study—while the top floor is reserved for the children. In total, approximately 300 square meters are spread across three levels, combining privacy and visual continuity with cross-views that connect the different areas of the house.

Material with soul

However, one of the project's most significant decisions was to strip the building down to its bare essence. By removing deteriorated cladding, the river stone party walls and the three-layered ceramic tile vaults emerged, appearing with unexpected force and becoming one of the house's most striking features. The new structural reinforcements were also left exposed: the cast-in-place concrete beams, the metal shoring, the wooden floor joists, and the stained compression layers. All are visible, telling the building's story without reservation, both the oldest and the most recent additions.

And where cladding was needed, lime mortars were chosen for serviced areas and microcement or flooring for wet areas. But always within the same chromatic harmony. Thus, the house now breathes a monochromatic atmosphere, very warm and with an earthy touch: ochres, raw tones of toasted sand, and shades of natural lime. The soft, handmade tiles, so perfect in their imperfection, the lightly pigmented concrete, and the plasters share this palette that unifies past and present, absorbing the light with an almost tactile softness.

On the protected façade, the one facing the street, in contrast, there was hardly any alteration. Its original character has been preserved, and blue—present in Girona's color palette—was introduced on the doors and windows, a shade also found in the courtyard. Inside, the original hydraulic tile flooring with small blue and white diamonds remains in place, as in the entrance to the house, like a cheerful carpet that welcomes visitors and establishes a subtle dialogue between the street and the home.

Beyond its spaciousness, the house's climate control relies on its own mass. Thick party walls and vaulted ceilings provide thermal inertia that keeps the house cool in summer, further enhanced by cross ventilation and operable skylights that allow hot air to escape through the roof. In winter, underfloor heating warms the ground floor, while radiators supplement the heat on the upper floors, all powered by an efficient aerothermal system.

But more than the technical details, what defines the transformation of this house in Girona is the new everyday experience it offers. Now light streams vertically through the courtyards, plants climb the openings, there's passage beneath the vaults, the stone reappears, and the gentle silence is created by the ancient thicknesses. In this way, from what was an abandoned and largely dilapidated skeleton, a house has emerged that can be explored, traversed, and breathed in naturally, and thus discovered little by little—as if it had always been there and always been this way, ready for the new times.