Living room, pergola, garden and pool on one level, and a fa\u00e7ade of three materials: white, timber and dark joinery. Casa Colinas del Limonar is a detached house on the eastern hillside of M\u00e1laga, next to El Limonar, El Candado and Pinares de San Ant\u00f3n. The plot came with a slope and with established Mediterranean planting already on it, and the brief carried the usual tension on this hillside: open the house to the views without leaving it perched over a bank. We found the answer in the section rather than the elevation.<\/p>\n
The site sits on the eastern hillside of the city: a moderate slope with existing Mediterranean planting. The quick route on ground like this is to terrace it, strip out what is there and drop the house onto the platform that results. Easier to draw, worse to live in \u2014 the planting that had already settled in is gone, and the house ends up looking at its own retaining wall.<\/p>\n
We worked the other way round. First we fixed what stayed, the existing planting and the line of the ground, and only then looked for where the house could sit. The area is governed by its own local plan, SUP-LE.5 \u201cColinas de Limonar\u201d (Plan Parcial de Ordenaci\u00f3n<\/em>), sitting under M\u00e1laga\u2019s general plan (PGOU<\/em>), which sets buildable area, height and boundary setbacks before a single drawing exists. Worth checking those figures early: moving the house at sketch stage takes an afternoon, moving it once the project is drawn takes weeks.<\/p>\n The opening decision was sectional rather than elevational: living room, pergola, garden and pool all on one level. On a sloping plot the usual answer is to drop the pool a storey below, at the foot of a flight of steps. It reads well on a drawing and then nobody uses it.<\/p>\n Kept on one level, the living room gains outdoor space instead of overlooking it. Large glazed openings and a flat roof finish the job: you cross from inside to out on the level, without a step. The plan settles into two halves \u2014 a day area running straight out to the garden, and en-suite bedrooms set aside from that route \u2014 so the two do not get in each other\u2019s way.<\/p>\n The fa\u00e7ade combines white volumes with selective natural-timber details and dark metal joinery. Three materials, not twelve. The white keeps the volumes reading as one piece and bounces light back inside; the dark frames recede and leave the glass clear; the timber turns up only where you touch it.<\/p>\n There is a trade-off, and it is fair to say so. White on the coast wants its finish and its sealant joints looked at every few years, and a fa\u00e7ade this plain will show up a badly detailed joint. It is a trade we would make again: a short palette ages better than five finishes, each maintained on its own schedule.<\/p>\n Casa Colinas del Limonar is part of a cluster of projects Klic Arquitectos has developed in the area. Two notable references:<\/p>\nOne level: living room, garden and pool<\/h2>\n
White, timber and dark joinery<\/h2>\n
Project data<\/h2>\n
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Other projects in Colinas del Limonar<\/h2>\n