A pool raised above the garden, with a shaded outdoor lounge beneath it, and a timber lattice filtering the light at the entrance. Villa Sand is a luxury villa in Colinas del Limonar, Málaga: 700 m² for a private developer who commissioned not one house but two, on adjoining plots. The challenge was not only above ground: a sloping site on phyllite gravels, a basement that needed retaining, and a swimming pool that had to be designed as a structural element. Work started on site in January 2025 and is still under way.
The idea of the house
The entrance is defined by a timber lattice that filters the light and screens views into the house: privacy without giving up transparency. The pool is raised above the garden, freeing a covered outdoor lounge underneath — a shaded space that extends the main living room and works as a viewpoint over the slope.
The rear façade is built around a generous cantilever that shields it from the summer sun and lets the whole living area open up to the outside through large glazed openings. At night the lighting comes from the water and from the roof, and the villa changes character without changing shape.
The brief
A Spanish limited company bought two adjoining plots in Colinas del Limonar and asked for two detached houses, processed under a single planning application. Villa Sand is one of them. Both share a separate infrastructure and site-works document, drafted by the studio itself and officially endorsed (visado), which avoided duplicating the paperwork with the municipal services.
The scope was comprehensive, and almost all of it stayed in-house: basic design (proyecto básico), construction project with services and structure calculated internally, a comparative tender between four building contractors, site management, and interior design. The building permit (licencia de obras) came with a condition that meant reworking the roof: removing the eaves within the three-metre setback strip along boundaries with public land. Better to know that before drawing, not after.
Site constraints
The plot measures 729.23 m² and has a moderate slope. The geotechnical survey, commissioned from CONANMA, found phyllite gravels with an allowable bearing capacity of 3.0 kgf/cm² and no water table within the six-metre depth of the borehole. With ground like that, the decision was to terrace the plot into platforms, build on a raft foundation and retain the basement with reinforced concrete walls.
The pool is not an add-on at the end of the garden; it is structure. It is built from 300 mm-deep solid reinforced concrete slabs with retaining walls of its own, and was calculated with its own subgrade modulus: 2,202 t/m³, against 2,284 t/m³ for the house raft. The rest of the house uses a 300 mm waffle slab (250 + 50) on concrete columns and walls, calculated in-house.
Interior design
The interior design is the studio’s own work: technical drawings for the kitchen, bathrooms, built-in and timber furniture, ceilings, lighting and electrics, plus the materials, flooring and finishes schedules. The kitchen was redesigned once the build was already under way, which is when you really find out whether a drawing works.
The services sit within the same project, with no external engineering consultant: hot water by air-source heat pump, wet underfloor heating above ground and electric below, ducted air conditioning concealed in service ceilings, hybrid ventilation, separate foul and surface-water drainage, and a lift linking all three floors. External windows and doors are aluminium with a timber-effect finish, with low-emissivity double glazing and laminated safety glass.
The build today
The first site management record is dated 21 January 2025, with the plot still at the earthworks stage. Since then the site visit records have been signed three ways — by the architects in charge of site management, by the building engineer (dirección de ejecución material) and by the contractor’s site manager — and the setting out for blockwork and joinery has been signed off.
The build is being carried out by Hermanos Campano, S.L., which won the tender. And one point worth making plainly: there is no completion certificate yet. Villa Sand is still under construction, and the images on this page are visualisations, not photographs of a finished building.
Gallery
Project data
- Typology: Detached single-family home with pool
- Use: Private residential
- Location: Colinas del Limonar, Málaga
- Design year: 2021
- Construction year: 2025
- Status: Under construction
- Built area: 700 m²
- Plot area: 729.23 m²
- Units: 1 house, part of a two-house commission on adjoining plots
- Programme: Main residence over two floors above ground and one below, linked by a lift; elevated pool with a covered outdoor lounge beneath it; timber lattice to the main façade; bedrooms with terraces; garage for two cars and one open parking space
- Client: Private developer (Spanish limited company)
- Architecture studio: Klic Arquitectos
- Building contractor: Hermanos Campano, S.L.
- Site management (dirección de obra): Klic Arquitectos
- Construction supervision (dirección de ejecución material): Vicente Bejarano Reyes, building engineer (arquitecto técnico)
- MEP engineering: Klic Arquitectos (in-house, within the construction project)
- Structure: Klic Arquitectos. Reinforced concrete: raft foundation, 300 mm waffle slab, columns and walls. Calculated in-house by the studio
- Interior design: Klic Arquitectos
- Klic services: Basic design, construction project, infrastructure and site-works document, tendering, site management and interior design
- Team: Juan Goñi Uriarte and Ruth Buján Varela, architects
Other projects in Colinas del Limonar
Casa Colinas del Limonar: contemporary single-family home with pool, pergola and a composition of white volumes.
Villa Boho: a home with warm interior design, a kitchen with a marble island and a sitting area with an arched bookcase.
Other projects in Colinas del Limonar
- Casa Colinas del Limonar: contemporary single-family home with pool, pergola and a composition of white volumes.
- Villa Boho: a home with warm interior design, a kitchen with a marble island and a sitting area with an arched bookcase.
