Well, if you are the owners of this polo club near the village of San Enrique, you call on architects Claudia Garay and Icíar Gómez-Zuloaga, the Madrid-based duo behind Jaspia, to conjure up something that will sit harmoniously in the environment. The owners, an Argentinian polo player and his Filipina wife who have always been hugely involved in the sport, knew that they wanted a take on a cortijo Andaluz – the traditional southern Spanish farmhouse that is often built around an internal courtyard. ‘Our job was to reinterpret that idea and to approach it through a contemporary lens,’ explains Claudia, who is an old friend of the wife. ‘We wanted to create a house that offered a new way to live,’ adds Icíar, referring to the fact that it needed to work as a family home – the couple have two young children – as well as a place for entertaining guests.
First of all, it was a case of them needing to establish the context. The hillside the owners had chosen to build on not only looks out onto fields filled with ponies, but also provides views towards the sea in one direction and mountains in the other. ‘What we designed needed to reflect the intersection between these three elements,’ says Icíar. They swiftly settled on the idea that the building should be low-slung – and give a nod to a traditional stable block and also the local vernacular.
A bucolic landscape mural of locally made, hand-painted tiles greets guests
Tom Griffiths
Inspired by the reddish-brown soil on which the building sits, Claudia and Icíar went for a palette of earthy browns and materials like the richly patinated ribbed copper roof, which glows in the setting evening sun and will continue to change colour as it oxidises. ‘It feels as if it has grown from the ground,’ Claudia observes. Red stone was chosen for the windowsills and for the exterior flooring, which seamlessly flows into the sand of the surrounding landscape, while the timber-framed windows are all made locally from afrormosia, a golden-brown, teak-like African hardwood.
Keen for this Spanish farmhouse not to feel too linear or cavernous, the design duo masterminded a series of eight interlocking volumes. Instead of having these gathered around a classic courtyard, the spaces branch out, creating a sequence of terraces on which to gather for different occasions: morning coffee, drinks or dinner. ‘The layout is shaped by light and the passing of the day,’ explains Claudia, referring to how the house runs east to west. The more public spaces – including a large sitting room with floor-to-ceiling glazing on one side and a light-filled open hallway on the other – looks to the east over the polo fields and gets lovely morning light. The dining room, kitchen and generous dining terrace – along with two of the house’s five bedrooms – face west and make the most of luminous sunsets.