The house that talks with the neighborhood

In Son Espanyolet, the Palma neighborhood where low houses and discreet facades define a good part of the urban landscape, building anew implies knowing how to look before deciding how to intervene. The house designed by Munarq, a studio founded by architects Rafel Munar and Pau Munar, starts from the desire to be part of the neighborhood without renouncing contemporary architecture.

The facade is the first gesture of this relationship with the surroundings. It maintains a scale and proportions that dialogue with the neighborhood, but introduces a new reading of its elements. It does not seek to be a unique piece that stands out among the surrounding constructions, but rather to update an already existing language. The lime mortar coating, rough and matte, covers a natural cork insulation and gives the exterior a sober appearance, close to the construction tradition of Mallorca. The lattice, made of compacted earth pieces, reinforces the connection with an architecture of simple materials and natural textures. Even the white curtains on the two balconies refer to a very Mediterranean tradition.

This desire for belonging does not, however, translate into a reproduction of traditional architecture. The house takes some of its resources –the proportion, the texture, the lime, the relationship with the street– and brings them into the present day. Light also plays an important role in this transformation: it enters the spaces and highlights the irregularities of the finishes, the different textures, and the contrast between materials.

The 120 square meters that the house has in total are distributed over two floors of about 60 square meters each, a contained dimension that also responds to the scale of the neighborhood. It is not a house conceived based on the idea of large spaces, but rather a sequence of rooms and relationships between them. At the back, a small patio with a minimal pool completes the dwelling and introduces its own outdoor space on a plot of discreet dimensions. Materiality is one of the keys to the project. The interior walls are finished with lime plaster, but it was decided to leave it with a single rough coat, without aiming for a smooth or perfect finish. The irregularity and texture become part of the architecture. Even so, this house in Son Espanyolet does not want to be just a celebration of natural materials. It was also intended to give it an industrial air. A counterpoint that appears in the concrete floors, the exposed concrete ceilings, and the installations that are not hidden. The air conditioning ducts run across the ceilings of the main rooms and assume their presence instead of becoming an element to be hidden. The concrete, steel, and exposed installations introduce a certain rawness that balances the warmth of the lime and the earth.

The result is a house that has as much harmony as it does contrast: lime and concrete, earth and steel, natural and industrial, tradition and contemporaneity. Contrasts that do not seek to be decorative, but rather explain two different ways of understanding construction and the act of dwelling. Outside, the house looks towards the already existing Son Espanyolet and seeks to maintain a natural relationship with it. But both outside and inside, a free expression is allowed, based on the sincerity of the materials and the desire not to disguise the constructive elements. This project by Munarq, rather than reproducing the features of the neighborhood's architecture, provides a reinterpretation of them. The house is discreet in its dimensions and in its relationship with the street, but new in the way it understands materials, light, and space. It does not intend to impose itself on its surroundings, it wants to converse with them.

Pragmatism and aesthetics

The architecture of this house in Son Espanyolet “is born from the synthesis between pragmatism and aesthetic will, a deliberate tension that manifests itself in every corner, in every material and in every void”, write the architects from Munarq, responsible for the project. In a dialogue with the environment through its volumetry, it proposes a contemporary reading, with a different way of understanding proportions, light and domestic spaces.