{"id":2202,"date":"2021-06-01T23:06:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T21:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/plot-12\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T11:26:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T09:26:59","slug":"plot-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/en\/blog\/plot-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Plot 12 \u00b7 Contemporary detached home in Antequera (M\u00e1laga)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A compact single-storey house with a porch and a pool, set on a hillside in Antequera, with more than half the plot left as it was. Plot 12 is a detached home in Antequera (M\u00e1laga) we designed without knowing who would live in it: one of four house types a private developer commissioned from us in 2019 to help sell its plots. Two things had to work at once \u2014 a 541 m\u00b2 sloping site, and a house that could be built exactly as drawn, without complications. The answer came to 130.15 m\u00b2 built.<\/p>\n

The brief: four house types to help sell the plots<\/h2>\n

Our client was a private developer with plots to sell in Antequera. It wasn\u2019t asking for a house; it was asking for a product. Four house types \u2014 for plots 12, 54, 90 and 200 \u2014 that would give a buyer something concrete to picture, and that could be built as drawn.<\/p>\n

That changes the brief. With no family behind it, the design answers to a different jury: usable square metres well spent, little maintenance, and a build any contractor understands at first glance. On plot 12 we produced the full preliminary design stage, the Spanish anteproyecto<\/em>: drawings, the schedule of areas and the visualisations, modelled and rendered in-house.<\/p>\n

What the site dictated<\/h2>\n

Plot 12 is 541 m\u00b2 of unbuilt, sloping ground. The easy answer would have been to dig and bury half the house in a basement. We did the opposite: the whole dwelling on one level above ground, nothing beneath it, and the level change absorbed by a 21.45 m\u00b2 concrete retaining wall and 70.80 m\u00b2 of paved platforms that set out the approach, the porch and the pool deck.<\/p>\n

The second decision was restraint. Of the 541 m\u00b2, some 304 m\u00b2 are left as they are \u2014 over half the plot \u2014 planted with the low-water species that suit Antequera\u2019s dry landscape. Less garden for the buyer to irrigate and less earth to move. On a sloping plot, the ground you leave alone is as much a design decision as the part you build on.<\/p>\n

One house, three plans<\/h2>\n

The first delivery set out 119.95 m\u00b2 of single-storey dwelling plus a 10.20 m\u00b2 covered porch: 130.15 m\u00b2 built, 101.47 m\u00b2 usable. Three bedrooms, the living space turned towards the farmland and the ridge of the sierra beyond, and a pool with a 22.50 m\u00b2 water surface on the terrace facing the valley.<\/p>\n

In June 2020 we reworked the model into three plan options on the same architecture: two bedrooms (115.10 m\u00b2 built), three bedrooms (130.15 m\u00b2) and three bedrooms plus a study (157.85 m\u00b2). This was not a design exercise. A development needs to offer more than one size of house, and the tidy way to get there is to let the house grow where it was always meant to grow, rather than patching it later.<\/p>\n

Where it stands<\/h2>\n

On 25 March 2020 we put together the tender package for contractors: drawings and images of plot 12, ready to go out. The model reached tender, and there it stopped. This page is published as what it is \u2014 a design proposal, not a finished building. The images are our own visualisations rather than photographs, and we would rather say so than let a render pass for a house that was built.<\/p>\n

If you own a plot in Antequera and want to know what will fit on it, an initial meeting<\/a> is the sensible place to start.<\/p>\n

Gallery<\/h2>\n
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\"Render<\/figure>\n
\"Exterior<\/figure>\n
\"Terrace<\/figure>\n
\"Night<\/figure>\n
\"Fa\u00e7ade<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Project data<\/h2>\n