Casa Sierra | Blanca Rocaspana

A rural house in Galicia is renovated to give it a new use as a pilgrim's hostel. The first decisions involve removing everything that has fallen into disrepair and rearranging the spaces around the farmyard to get the best out of the proposal and the traditional elements. Part of the roof is to be renovated and in doing so a number of slopes to capture solar energy are created and also linked to the other volumes. The interior flooring is lowered, making the hostel accessible and a heated floor with geothermics incorporated. The main challenge for the project is to design a communal room that creates privacy and comfort, while at the same time maintaining the idea of the group that is so unique to the Pilgrims' Way. Three rooms with six beds are proposed which divide the double space and offer better lighting and acoustics. They are built from cross-laminated wood, a prefabricated sustainable material that is quick to assemble. The lighting is built into the panels: the interior has warm lighting and can be controlled by the user, and the passageways have automatic linear cold lighting. With regard to the rest of the project, there is a quota for windows and the use of local materials which reflect Galician architecture.