Studio-House Acorán II
2007
gpy arquitectos


Photograph: Efraín Pintos

The dwelling is located in the residential neighbourhood of Acorán, in an area of rapid growth in the southwest of the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. It extends in a strip along the north-south axis perpendicular to the access road. It is oriented towards the surrounding views and the interior patio-garden, and is closed off from the street and neighbouring buildings.


Photograph: Efraín Pintos

The house is built on different levels to adapt to the steep grade of the terrain. Access is through the top level, which houses the common areas – kitchen, dining area, sitting room – with views of the horizon and the island's southern profile. Adjoining the street access area is a small workshop with a separate entrance. The bedrooms are located on the lower level and open onto the patio-garden. The south-facing master bedroom, with views extending above and beyond the other dwellings in the neighbourhood, connects to a studio and private garden, which occupies the lowest level of the plot.


Photograph: Efraín Pintos

A simple twist in the dwelling’s skin creates a terrace open to the surrounding landscape, which forms an extension of the sitting room, as well as a porch which offers a shady place to rest on the patio shared by the bedrooms.

The building is designed in such a way that each room has its own private open space – patio, terrace, garden. So we could name the access patio, the sitting room terrace, the bedrooms' patio-porch and the garden adjoining the master bedroom studio.


Photograph: Constanze Sixt

The implantation of the building is such that it creates its own surroundings. The dwelling constructs its own immediate landscape in the form of its various open spaces, and through the openings in its skin, determines the form of relations to the distant landscape, negating the immediate context of neighbouring dwellings.


Interior image: Efraín Pintos

The external skin is staggered, oriented and half-opened in such a way that it creates a certain ambiguity between interior and exterior, bringing in what is outside, offering an ambivalent sensation of both opening and closure. Light and shade are the materials used to activate the domestic setting and transform the space through their continuous movement.



Project Data:
Project: Studio-House Acorán II
Situation: Acorán Housing Estate, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Tenerife
Client: Juan Manuel Rodríguez | Mª del Carmen Pino


PInterior image: Constanze Sixt

Architects: gpy arquitectos - Juan Antonio González Pérez, Urbano Yanes Tuña
Collaborators: Carolina Rivero, Constanze Sixt
Project Size: 258 m2
Completion: 2007

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Tenerife House : page - adrian welch / isabelle lomholt