Villa Icaria | Arquitectura Al Descubierto

Villa Icaria, recalling Étienne Cabet's utopian proposal, seeks to establish a new relationship between countryside and city, creating a meeting place, an opportunity to -once again- fill the rural environment with contemporary urban activities.

Its volumes are intertwined with nature on the banks of the Tagus river. Its solids and cavities describe this double quality. Stone, rural organicism and shadows give way to glass, light and synchronous space.

The floor plan of the building displays two embraces, one for the arrival and one to stay, generating a small town articulated around two patios-squares. These volumes alternate interior spaces of two types: those that are crossed by the landscape and those that are sheltered inside the stone volumes, capturing visual fragments. The entire construction is the work of local masons and local materials have been prioritized in this return to essentials, the finishes are raw: the exposed concrete vaults, the rustic plastering of the interior walls and the polished concrete floors connecting with the rural logic.

Permeability, spatial continuity and intimacy follow one another. Housing aims, ultimately, to offer an alternative to the city, but linked to it; a place of return to origins, creating a refuge where the hyperconnected technological activity of the 21st century can be developed. The project includes different intentions - search for the best views of the river, conservation of existing trees, sustainability, self- sufficiency - until configuring a whole with meaning.