GilBartolomé Architects has created a cavernous residence with a zinc-shingled roof in Salobrena in Spain. This amazing futuristic cliff house is dug into a steep cliff in front of the Mediterranean Sea with breathtaking views.
Designing this beautiful house was a big challenge…the architect was given a very complex site with an extremely tight budget.
The plot is on a hill with a 42-degree inclination, so the architect had to integrate the house within the magnificent landscape with livable spaces facing the sea.
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- Image courtesy GilBartolomé Architects, by Jesus Granada
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- Image courtesy GilBartolomé Architects, by Jesus Granada
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- Image courtesy GilBartolomé Architects, by Jesus Granada
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- Image courtesy GilBartolomé Architects, by Jesus Granada
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- Image courtesy GilBartolomé Architects, by Jesus Granada
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- Image courtesy GilBartolomé Architects, by Jesus Granada
This two-storey house is largely buried in the ground. Architects describe this eye-opening property as a “Gaudiesque contemporary cave.”
There is a large terraced living room, large glass windows, and an outdoor pool. The roof was produced through a handcrafted formwork system developed by a local engineer using handmade zinc tiles that give off a metallic shimmer.
The house is designed in a way that the interior temperature of 19.5°C [67°F] is maintained all the year round without any need for additional heating or cooling. There is 16 inches of insulation in the concrete roof, which “allows for a magnificent mix of insulation and thermal inertia.”
As per Gil and Bartolomé, “The form of the house and the metallic roof produces a calculated aesthetic ambiguity between the natural and the artificial…between the skin of a dragon set in the ground when seen from below, and the waves of the sea when seen from above.”
