Casa ACAP by Alventosa Morell Arquitectes is situated in Baixa Cerdanya, Spain. Designed in 2023, this house offers spectacular views of the Tosa de Alp Mountain and ensures visual and thermal comfort with its north-facing mountain views and south-facing light access.
Casa ACAP by Spanish studio Alventosa Morell Arquitectes is located in the small village of Das in the Pyrenees. The house is sited to capture striking views of the Tosa de Alp Mountain to the north, while also admitting light from the south to improve visual and thermal comfort throughout its spaces.
“They imagined a house well connected to the garden, luminous, and with ample common spaces.”
The clients for Casa ACAP wanted a space away from the city to enjoy the natural surroundings with their children. They asked for an open-plan, light-filled interior that connects to the surrounding garden space.
Exploring the surrounding area, the studio noticed that most of the neighboring buildings were square-shaped houses. Several of these houses were set on their plots in ways that left narrow, undefined outdoor space and blocked opportunities for views. According to the studio, this layout often “makes it impossible to enjoy the views from more than two or three rooms.”
Rather than follow these examples, they took a different approach, choosing a rectangular plan that seeks to more effectively integrate the home’s layouts with its surrounding gardens and views. The building is shifted to the sides of the plot, freeing space on the front and back for two large garden areas.
Arranging the rooms along a long, rectangular floor plan allows all the spaces to face both north and south, opening up to the views while allowing the home to capture solar radiation from the south. These orientations help protect the views for interior spaces while also ensuring thermal comfort.
The relatively compact soil footprint of the one-story structure introduce contrast between its massing and the gardens on either side. Alventosa Morell Arquitectes designed the gardens to help ground the design and provide meaningful outdoor space for the family.
Casa ACAP is built with a timber frame system, one of the most traditional and sustainable construction methods in the local area. The pine truss structure provides a long-term footprint and helps connect the home with its surrounding natural environment.
Throughout the interior, the quality of the wood—both durable and warm—is revealed in exposed floor plates and columns and beams. Its light, organic tones contrast with the darker, more structural exposed steel elements.
“Casa ACAP wants to remind us of the qualities of timber framing and its ability to create inhabitable structures with character,” said the studio.
They designed a double-height interior for Casa ACAP that houses a shared living and dining area, which is the social and visual center of the home.
Wooden slats screen the second-floor hallway from the living and dining area below. In addition to its relationship with the garden space outside, the height of the living and dining room adds an element of connection to the interior, allowing for interaction between the two related private and social realms.
The dining area welcomes a significant amount of southern exposure through long, vertical windows. The kitchen, on the other side of the space, is separated from the dining area by way of a suspended staircase housed in U-profile steel atop a closed wooden guardrail. This element provides transparency to connect the two social spaces while also introducing an element of playful formality.
Alongside the kitchen on the main floor is a bedroom and a full bathroom, further divided from the openness of the living area by the hallway leading to the home’s entry.
The upper floor of Casa ACAP houses the remainder of the home’s bedrooms. They are aligned alongside the north façade, each one enjoying views out towards the mountains.
The bedrooms are connected by a south-facing corridor on the opposite side of the floor plan. This layout node, which receives light from smaller square-shaped windows, strengthens the separation between the sleeping area and the living and dining room below. At each end of the corridor is a full bathroom.
The natural, open-feeling home provides the young family with a sought-after place of retreat, helping balance life between the city and country. By prioritizing spaciousness and connection with the external environment, Casa ACAP provides a celebration of the natural world.
