Conceived as a series of pine boxes visually connected to the pine forest outside, this modern home in Spain frames its striking wooden interiors like works of art. That’s fitting, because they pretty much are. Designed by architect Ramón Esteve, the home is set in a vineyard in Fontanars dels Alforins, Spain on the outskirts of an urban area. Esteve says he took the traditional typology of the rural house with a gable roof and applied it to “a new spatial concept.”
The result is unlike anything you’ve ever seen: a monolithic cathedral-like volume with a concrete exterior shell and high, pine-lined ceilings. The interiors are interspersed with individual pine-clad volumes holding various private spaces like bedrooms and bathrooms, each one feeling like a showcase of wood – warm and yet minimalist.
The furniture, cabinets and fireplace surrounds are made of the same pine, all custom-crafted for the project. A large, open-air room on one end creates a breezeway effect, with views of the forest in one direction and the vineyard in the other.
“Environmentally, it follows the guidelines of a passive house. It has suitable means to take advantage of renewable energies through the use of panels for solar collection, energy supply from biomass or the collection and sustainable storage of rainwater suitable for consumption,” says Esteve.
“The access to the plot is a path wrapped in olive trees. In the background you can see the house, hidden among clusters of cypresses, poplars and pines. The entrance to the house is through one of the boxes. The central concrete space forms a common fluid area to which the rest of the rooms turn and is presided over a large chimney. Inside, the views are framed in the pine volumes that invades the central space. When conceived as a second residence, both the boxes and the porches are completely closed when the house is not inhabited.”
