Single-family house in Ibiza

La Casa de Verano, in Ibiza, was the first construction project undertaken by Ricardo Bofill after leaving architecture school in Geneva. Ibiza still carried its inherent islander characteristics, removed from the continent and its expanding cities. The island wasn’t very built-up and generally used materials found close by, that were minimally transformed. The island—isolated, raw, and unique—was thus where Ricardo Bofill chose to establish his first project.

The house faces out from a tree-lined hill, blending in, as it opens more fully onto the slope and the sea. This positioning prompted the distribution of rest areas towards the back and entertaining areas towards the front. The house had to accommodate a single person living there, while also being able to host six more. It thus hinged on two main servant cores: one in the front, housing a kitchen that bordered the living room and a dining room on the terrace; and, at the back, two bathrooms serving two ample rest areas. The house can be approached in a very global manner, owing to the distribution of non-partitioned spaces that nevertheless follow from the two servant cores and different levels that create different scenes. The dwelling’s space is thus grasped as a whole and offers several atmospheres, which can become independent when desired.

The thick walls—coloured white like the stone in the ground—seem to be mobile and envelope each space as if to embrace it. The walls undulate like the mountainous terrain outside, with the brutality and elegance of the bunkers mingling with the landscape. The intimate spaces are regularly pierced by narrow openings. And depending on how light is supplied, the furnishings are precisely arranged, incorporated into the walls and the thickness of the raised platforms. Each element seems to have been carved into the load-bearing walls in the same fashion as the hearth and its chimney seem to spring from the partition.