Casa Neutra
Casa Neutra, a single-family house with six interior courtyards, surrounded by earth, completely closed to the urban area but completely open to the landscape, the leitmotiv of its interior layout.
Neutra is an earth house that recovers the Castilian tradition of building with adobe and rammed earth, a historically sustainable material— rooted in the memory of the place—and a wall system with great thermal inertia, regulating humidity, improving the habitability and comfort of each room.
The covered area of the house is, in fact, a large threshold located between open (exterior) areas, but surrounded by the construction itself, making them interior. More open courtyards and more private ones constantly maintain the inhabitant in
contact with nature, the landscape, and the earth that surrounds them; in addition, they also control the lighting, sunlight, and ventilation of the interior spaces.
Landscape and tradition
The landscape of Castilla y León is drawn by extensive fields of crops dotted with small groups of trees, dovecotes and some isolated buildings. Its villages are small towns where the memory of what they once were is palpable in every corner: the traditional houses, made of rammed earth and wood, were abandoned in many cases, by inhabitants who fled the hard work of the field, in search of a more affluent life. Perhaps it was in this flight that the land, along with these houses, was abandoned and conceived as part of a peasant and unprosperous past.
Casa Neutra is a claim of the traditional construction of the area, using the earth as skin, structure and link to the site where it was born. Neutra is the way it is, as a result of a deep reading of its roots and its territory:
The house presents itself as a closed volume on the outside, but open and transparent on the inside: a house that blends in with its surroundings. Its solid aspect is interrupted by 6 patios, which are responsible for diluting the living spaces with the landscape of the Esgueva Valley. The house is organized through the sequence of these patios, which progressively introduce us to the countryside as we leave the urbanization behind, dematerializing the construction little by little until it is completely open to the landscape. The interior spaces constantly evoke and frame the valley, and look at themselves through diagonal visuals that maintain the contact relationship of its inhabitants and invite them to coexist with the land in an intimate way. The field, mutant throughout the different seasons of the year, camouflages or shows the house according to the color it presents.
Neutra is conceived from observation, approach and pause; a place to contemplate without being contemplated. An architecture that listens to the landscape, the environment and the culture of the place to make a contemporary reading of its territory.
Materiality
In addition to the earth blocks (BTC) used both in the skin and in the structure of the house, the leftover blocks have been reused in paving, curbs and earth fillings in the garden. The rendered sections of the facade have been made with earth
mortar.
In addition, the bathroom sinks have been made with stone from Campaspero, a local stone quarry located 40 km from the house.
