The Munarq architecture team, based in Mallorca, has rehabilitated an old country house in Marratxí, turning it into a studio for a painter.
On a lot where the old existing rural house had been absorbed by the urbanization of semi-detached houses on the outskirts of town, is this small studio overlooking the wheat fields and their straw bales in summer.
An ideal location for a painter, who moved out of the studio looking for the tranquility that this new space provides: air, vegetation and silence.
The main requirements were to have two large spaces (exhibition and workshop), free and high walls to hang work, natural light with windows to the north and visual privacy in the work areas.
The architects had 230m2, two very low floors with walls of earth and straw that were quite deteriorated by the passage of time, and engulfed by vegetation.
They decided to keep all the existing old volume, and increase the building with a new space that is dedicated to a multifunctional exhibition room and open to accommodate the workshop space. This one is given an industrial style with concrete beams and vault and very high ceilings. A scaffold separates the space, as well as serves as furniture and office of the artist.
This new volume is made of dry stone walls, traditional Balearic, and closes the outside garden forming a small patio with terrace to the south, which is attached to a pergola of hurdle.
A new entrance door is created in the north façade that connects to the street without enclosure in the boundary of the site providing a different urban and landscaped space.
In the garden the cistern is conserved, that serves to irrigate the orchard, as well as the exuberant bush of prickly pears of the entrance is pruned.
Inwardly, a floor and distribution system is used to provide double height for the exhibition space and the entrance, and it is connected to the adjacent decks, which used to be outside poultry houses, to organize the kitchen and the north room.
The architects decide to respect the small and tall windows that overlook the sky and deliver zenithal light. The rungs of the ladder that goes up to the loft are lots of wooden beams that have been reused from the demolition of the decks.
The floor is made of polished concrete in all rooms and beams made of pine wood and laminated fir. A very cheap type of construction for an unpretentious reform, but with style and respect for the place and the existing.
