Renovation and extension of a traditional house in Calvia. Inserting a new reinforced concrete structure, the small, dark rooms are opened up to the garden areas and terraces. An extension provides a new light-filled kitchen and connects the main house and outbuildings into a continuous ground floor.
The extension serves two purposes. First it maintains the volumes and materials of the original building, tying in with the pre-existing buildings and linking the outbuilding to the main house transforming it from a small cottage into a substantial house.
Second, it provides a bright kitchen space opening onto a new southwest facing terrace whilst connecting the two previously separate parts of the house.

THE BUILDING
The renovation of the traditional building involved modifying a fragile crumbling old structure of stone walls and timber floorslabs. Through inserting a new reinforced concrete structure into the skin of the original house, the small, dark rooms dug deep into the hillside have been opened up and interconnected. Removing sections of wall and pillars, natural light is brought into the depth of the original building connecting it directly to the garden areas and terraces.
The new kitchen (top left) fits in to the small scale and fragmentary character of the existing old buildings, maintaining the house’s character through the use of local materials and echoing the forms of the earlier buildings.
The site is very constricted and so the scheme had to be phased so that the house could remain in use for as long as possible. The new steel frame kitchen link was built first, before extensive structural repairs to the existing building were undertaken.