{"id":12906,"date":"2023-06-13T11:50:37","date_gmt":"2023-06-13T09:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/?p=12906"},"modified":"2026-09-06T18:47:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T16:47:56","slug":"casa-cotton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/en\/blog\/nerja\/","title":{"rendered":"Casa Cotton \u00b7 Refurbishment with interior design \u00b7 Nerja"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sliding glazed doors with the frames hidden in the wall, a white spiral staircase and a rear courtyard that works as one more room. Casa Cotton is a refurbishment with interior design in Nerja (M\u00e1laga): a mid-terrace house at the eastern end of the Costa del Sol. The brief came with a limit written into the project documents \u2014 108.36 m\u00b2 of floor area that could not grow, and a three-bedroom programme to fit inside it. Whatever the house gained, it had to gain internally.<\/p>\n

The brief: a refurbishment with interior design in Nerja<\/h2>\n

The house sits mid-terrace, over ground and first floors: 108.36 m\u00b2 of built area on a 96.22 m\u00b2 plot, measured by survey. The project documents set the boundaries plainly \u2014 no change of use, no increase in permitted floor area, no alteration to the structure of the existing volume. In practice, nothing could be added. Anything the house gained had to come out of redistributing what was already there.<\/p>\n

The first decision was about the brief rather than the design. At the outset it was still open whether the house would have two bedrooms or three. The owner settled on three, and that fixed the entire upper floor: a principal bedroom with en-suite bathroom and access to a covered terrace, both facing south; two secondary bedrooms facing north; and a second bathroom lit and ventilated through a rooflight. Klic Arquitectos<\/a> is responsible for the design and site supervision, together with BenitoPozo Arquitecto SLP, co-author of the project.<\/p>\n

The proposal: the house is won from the inside<\/h2>\n

On the ground floor the partition that closed off the kitchen came out, so kitchen and living-dining room now read as one room. The cloakroom moved to the south-facing front elevation, so that it takes daylight and ventilation directly instead of relying on an extract fan. The front door moved too: it now faces the covered porch and works as a sliding door-window.<\/p>\n

The piece that opens the house is a pair of sliding glazed doors with the aluminium frames concealed inside the wall build-up. With no visible frames, the interior opens fully onto both outdoor spaces: the front porch and the 19.07 m\u00b2 rear courtyard. The former front garden was raised to ground-floor level and became a pergola-covered porch, partly roofed \u2014 another sitting space, and one that adds no countable floor area.<\/p>\n

The two floors are connected by a new spiral staircase in a 1.75 \u00d7 1.75 m opening. Closing the existing stair opening called for the only structural work in the project: a one-way floor slab of lattice joists and clay pot infill. It is the sort of decision that never shows up in an image, and it explains why a refurbishment that is \u201conly internal\u201d still needs a structural report stamped by the architects\u2019 registration board (visado<\/em>).<\/p>\n

The decisions signed off with the owner<\/h2>\n

The interior design was not settled on instinct. It was closed out in a video call and in the written summary the owner sent afterwards. That is where the specifics come from: joinery, pergola and front door in anthracite; glass balustrades; flush white internal doors with black ironmongery; a white spiral staircase. The cotton white that gives the house its name is on the record.<\/p>\n

The rear courtyard came with a precise request: it should work \u201cas if it were another room\u201d. A pergola that can be roofed over but still ventilate, and an enclosure usable in winter. Reed screening was ruled out in favour of folding timber louvres over a prefabricated timber pergola. Kitchen, flooring and bathrooms were settled as a single package with one supplier, and the furniture schedule and setting-out dimensions form part of the practice\u2019s own interior design documents.<\/p>\n

From permission to site<\/h2>\n

The administrative calendar is the least photogenic part of this project and the most instructive. Nerja town hall came back on the minor works application (licencia de obra menor<\/em>) with a list of points \u2014 the spiral stair and its balustrade, the proposed boundary fence, the first-floor balustrade, the structural and foundation justification, and the roof conditions for the hot water system \u2014 all of which had to be reworked and evidenced in a revised set of documents, stamped by the M\u00e1laga architects\u2019 registration board, before permission was granted by decree.<\/p>\n

Work started on 13 October 2025, with the health and safety plan approved three days earlier and Urbana Infraestructuras e Ingenier\u00eda as main contractor, and the works are still on site. If you are weighing up a refurbishment on this stretch of coast, that calendar is the figure worth checking with the practice<\/a> first. Between applying for permission and being able to start, a good deal more time can pass than most people expect.<\/p>\n

The house has not grown by a single metre, and it is used in a quite different way: a continuous ground floor running from porch through kitchen-living room to courtyard, and an upper floor with three bedrooms and two bathrooms that both have natural light. It follows the same line of work on existing housing that the practice has developed at Casa Bluma, in V\u00e9lez-M\u00e1laga<\/a> and Casa Duquesa de Parcent, in M\u00e1laga\u2019s Soho district<\/a>, and on the seafront at Casa Caoba, in Torremolinos<\/a>, and Casa Al Mar, in Benalm\u00e1dena<\/a>. In Nerja itself the practice had previously designed Casa Punta Lara<\/a>, that one a new build. There is more of our architecture of refurbishments with interior design<\/a> to look through.<\/p>\n

Do you have a home in Nerja? Tell us about your project.<\/a><\/p>\n

Gallery<\/h2>\n