The plot imposed two constraints. The first, its area, is a classic that still catches many people out: the cadastral record (Catastro<\/em>) gave 621 m\u00b2, while the topographical survey gave 585. The survey governs: it is the area that the planning rules of the partial plan (plan parcial) for the sector work from, under the U-Viviendas Unifamiliares (detached housing) zoning. That partial plan received final approval in 1998 and was later incorporated into Benalm\u00e1dena\u2019s 2003 General Urban Plan (PGOU). The project was drawn on 585 m\u00b2.<\/p>\n The second constraint was the slope. The ground falls from south-west to north-east. On most plots that is a nuisance you pay for in retaining walls and earthworks. Here it turned into the idea behind the whole scheme.<\/p>\n Above ground there are 128.20 m\u00b2: 85.20 on the ground floor, 43.00 on the first. That covers the house itself: a 26.19 m\u00b2 living and dining room, a 9.89 m\u00b2 kitchen, two secondary bedrooms of 9.38 and 9.31 m\u00b2, and a 22.30 m\u00b2 principal bedroom with its own 10.72 m\u00b2 bathroom and two terraces. Not much else fits.<\/p>\n The decision was to move everything that is not strictly living space into the basement, using the slope to give it vehicle access by ramp. That makes 179.71 m\u00b2 that do not count towards the permitted floor area: garage (49.43 m\u00b2), plant room, laundry, WC, games room (15.44 m\u00b2) and a 35.49 m\u00b2 wine cellar and bar. The buried floor ended up 40% larger than the two floors above it put together.<\/p>\n Digging had its surprise. Once the ground was opened up, the bearing stratum turned out to be half a metre lower than expected, and the basement dropped from level +98.15 to +97.65. The retaining walls were built in HA-25\/B\/25\/IIa reinforced concrete, waterproofed externally with an SBS-modified bitumen membrane and a dimpled drainage sheet, backfilled with gravel and fitted with a perimeter drain. In a half-buried house, that layer is what decides whether the cellar smells of wine or of damp.<\/p>\n The pool tank and the basement wine cellar share a wall, and three windows were cut through it. The cellar is lit by daylight filtered through the water, and from inside you read the pool in section. It is the kind of idea that only turns up when a basement is treated as a proper floor rather than a store.<\/p>\n The pool is a marble deck-level tank with a linear skimmer: 4.00 x 10.55 m, two depths and 42.22 m\u00b2 of water. It was drawn as a trapezoid and squared off into a rectangle during construction. The tank sits on a 300 mm HA-30\/B\/25\/IV concrete slab, a more demanding exposure class than the rest of the structure. That specification exists for chlorides, which is precisely what treated pool water carries.<\/p>\n The works were certified as complete on 13 July 2021, after some 30 months on site. Over that time, the final certificate of works (certificado final de obra<\/em>) records more than ten changes from the licensed project, none of which added a single countable square metre or breached a planning parameter. The ground-floor terraces were levelled to +101.00. The kitchen and a bedroom swapped places. The living and dining rooms were reversed.<\/p>\n The most significant change was structural. The columns supporting the south porch were removed and replaced with upstand beams, leaving the porch clear of supports and lifting the first floor from +104.04 to +104.63. The structure was calculated in-house to CTE, NCSE-02 and EHE-08, and built by Copizcor SL, with 300 mm waffle slabs (25+5) at ground, first and roof level.<\/p>\n The external walls are a cavity construction \u2014 a ceramic inner leaf, a cavity holding the insulation and a half-brick perforated outer leaf \u2014 finished in white, with horizontal timber louvres on the north-west corner. Both roofs are inverted: the accessible one waterproofed with a heat-reflective liquid polyurea, the non-accessible one with twin-layer SBS bitumen and washed pebbles. Inside, a free-standing staircase beside the side glazing has backlit Corian-clad treads, and all the furniture is bespoke joinery. Domestic hot water is supported by solar thermal collectors. The glass balustrades shown in the project ended up being built as masonry parapets.<\/p>\n One last fact, for anyone planning timescales. The house was finished in July 2021 and the first occupancy licence (licencia de primera ocupaci\u00f3n<\/em>) was applied for that November. Two rounds of council queries followed, both were answered, and the favourable decision did not come until 14 December 2022: a year and a half after completion. The build itself closed without a single entry in the site order book or in the health and safety incident book.<\/p>\nThe basement: the floor that does not count<\/h2>\n
The pool that lights the cellar<\/h2>\n
The construction process<\/h2>\n
Gallery<\/h2>\n
![\"Exterior](\"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/casamaravillas_-39-de-43-scaled.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n![\"Side](\"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/casamaravillas_-18-de-43-scaled.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n![\"Living](\"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/casamaravillas__-1-de-1-scaled.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n![\"Main](\"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/casamaravillas_-8-de-43-scaled.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n![\"Principal](\"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/casamaravillas__1-2-de-2-scaled.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\nProject data<\/h2>\n
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Other projects by Klic Arquitectos<\/h2>\n