Rural Residence El Cercao | Daroca Arquitectos

The existing building dating from 1920 was in bad condition due to its abandonment. A house consisting of three parallel bays by load-bearing walls, saving spans of between 3.5m. and 4.5m. The oldest to the East, covered by ceramic tile where it excels a chimney and of pairs of wood, brick board in good state. Its continuity in the higher West, was of worse constructive quality. The intermediate slabs of the second floor were deteriorated.

The first intention was the integral restoration of the existing building, the traditional single-family house as it was in the past, with replacement of floors and roofs, as well as underpinning of foundations and new structural elements, but given the great technical and economic difficulties to carry out this type of intervention, as well as the structural danger it entailed, a different concept started.

Invert the uses: the most immediate action to support walls and roofs of the existing building. The new house, a single-storey U-shaped building, embraces from the west and supports the old building, so that it emerges on the new one, while structurally consolidating the old walls by tying strapping and footings.

What in the past where rooms of the previous house would become the free spaces or courtyards of the new house. The walls are maintained and braced, part of the roofs are demolished and others are restored, as is the case of the most primitive and the wooden pairs remain as a pergola.

To the outside, image of white walls with few openings, surrounds the inclined planes of ceramic tile, wooden pergolas or whitewashed walls. Classic image of farmhouses of Andalusia that establishes a natural dialogue between new and old architecture. 

Location
Arahal, Seville

Surface area
280 m2

Completion date
December 2022

Authors
José Luis Daroca Bruño and Jaime Daroca Guerrero

Photography
Fernando Alda