[ Quim Larrea y Katherine Bedwell ] Rembed House

Architect: Quim Larrea y Katherine Bedwell
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Project Year: 2008
Technical Architect: Emili Manrique
Client: Rembed
Structural Engineering: Marc Gual
Site Area: 1,717 sqm
Constructed Area: 312 sqm
Photographs: Rafael Vargas, K. Bedwell

The site is located nearby a natural park 20 miles NW of Barcelona. It is a magical place, surrounded by pine trees, oaks, and holm oaks and scented by the perfume of wild bushes and flowers…

The peculiarity of the natural setting, the views of the valley and the functionality that the client demanded made us think of those Californian homes designed by Richard Neutra back in the 50’s.

site plan
The house with a “V” shape plan had to be horizontal, tectonic, but at the same time friendly and respectful with the forest. It had to levitate on the site in order to simulate weightlessness.

The materials chosen -limestone, wood and steel - had to integrate well with the surroundings, and the color scheme was carefully studied, selecting sober and neutral tones that would blend smoothly with the site’s natural background setting.

The lot has a peninsula-shape and a slope with a Southwest orientation, and a street that surrounds it, except on the north side which limits with a neighboring site.

The program required for the house design needed to adapt itself to a young couple with two small daughters. They required comfort, functionality and transparency; this is why we decided to design fluid spaces that had a continuous relation with the exterior spaces of the house.

Due to the characteristics of the lot, the complexity of the project was to solve and define, with architectural elements, which were the public facades and which were the private ones. We decided to make two volumes to well define the most intimate part of the woods in order to keep it, as much as possible, away from the street.

Therefore, the house is placed on the highest point of the site and it is resolved with the placement of two wings that form a V-shape plan.

The access to the house is through a pedestrian path that connects it to Santa Agnes Street, and parallel to it, the garage ramp is located. The foyer acts as the “rotula” or joint of the house from where two zones are distributed: night/day, public/private.

The kitchen, living-room and dining-room are located in the day/public wing. It is a single space, similar two those “American” main-rooms or family-rooms. The garage/laundry-room and the powder-room are also placed in this wing on ground floor level. The other wing is for the night/private uses. Here are placed the children’s bedrooms, a bathroom, and a guest-room suite on the ground floor level, and a master bedroom and work studio on the second floor.