House in Tarragona by Dom Arquitectura

Spanish studio Dom Arquitectura wrapped the ground floor of Tarragona House with a stone screen to reference Roman city fortifications.

The team used local construction traditions as a guide, so the ground floor of Tarragona House is fronted by dry stone. It acts as a “plinth emerging from the ground”.

Dom Arquitectura positioned the house on slightly sloping terrain in a pine forest, forming three levels: an entrance level, a ground floor area and garden.

The L-shaped plan encloses what architect Pablo Serrano calls a “visually enclosed environment”, ensuring it closes off from the rest of the nearby houses and road behind it while integrating into its natural surroundings.

“The stone facade is placed on prefabricated concrete panels,” Serrano said. “The prefabrication allows for relatively easy construction, reducing time, cost and waste generated on site.”

Serrano also notes that placing the stone as the base of the house creates “a series of vertical and repetitive shadowy traces of trunks, branches and leaves”.

Dom Arquitectura describes the white upper level as “a white ribbon” that contacts with the bottom floor at only a few points, as most of it cantilevers over spaces below, creating more space for terraces and open areas on the upper level.

The ground floor encompasses the home’s main rooms: the living, dining room and kitchen.

The arrangement of wide-open spaces on this floor provides visual continuations out to the terraces on either side, “embracing the space” by each being contrarily framed by the structure cutting into the landscape.

The main living room has glass doors or windows on each side, connecting to the terrace and letting natural air into the room.

The white volume on the first floor holds the bedrooms, sitting above the ground floor like a “purer and lighter piece” on stone bases.

Much of the space isn’t enclosed, consisting instead of voids, terraces, white lattices and pergolas.

The climax of the house is the “full” terrace on the second floor, which overlooks the nearby sea and serves as a sun lounge in the cooler months and a shaded sitting area in the summer.

Gallardo placed terraces south, which helps insulate the house by protecting the interior facade from direct solar radiation in warmer months.

The white facades are made with mortar and paint on thermal insulation panels, preventing thermal bridges and ensuring climate efficiency.

The painted wall provides a white backdrop for greenery that can grow into the ledges for the stone wall, or up lattices and pergolas between walls and framing expansive outdoor spaces.

This white contrast to the stone facade caught the eye of House in Totoral designers, who used the same aesthetic strategy on the exteriors of a home in Chile.