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An Architect-Remodeled Stone Barn on Formentera

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Spain’s Marià Castelló Martínez designed this contemporary update that reuses an ancient stone dwelling located on the Spanish island of Formentera.

The Can Manuel d’en Corda project involved extending and making additions to a traditional building of handcrafted stonework in Vénda des Cap de Barbaria, in the west of the island.

The original building was a simple framed barn shape, but the trusses had rotted.

Keeping the old stone walls, the trusses were replaced, strengthening the building.

The hard square edges of the new addition provide an uncompromising foil to the soft stone of the original building.

The new exteriors are painted white, which is an ancient cooling technique used in the region.

Efficient and crisp new wooden framed windows were inserted deliberately and carefully into the old spaces.

In the modern additions, concrete is used throughout, but painted white. Only the ceilings retain the natural look of the concrete.

The floors are highly polished and refined – a sharp contrast with the rough industrial texture of the concrete ceiling.

In the bathrooms, this rough grey concrete provides the perfect foil for the warm tones of the wood, and the highly polished pure line of the bathroom fixture.

This contemporary bathroom, with the clean lines of its polished concrete poured-in-place sink, offers a glimpse through to the view of sky beyond the bath area.

Inspired by the original rafters that had framed an open roof that had long rotted away, much more structurally sound steel beams have been painted white for a clean contrast to the eternal blue skies of the island.

These steel rafters are practically indestructible.

A stair makes an access to the wide expansive view offered from the roof, as well as a cool place to sleep on hot summer nights, an age-old tradition.

It’s an uncompromising renovation, but one in which the old ways have been honored.

http://www.contemporist.com/2012/07/28/can-manuel-den-corda-by-maria-castello-martinez/