Live underground. The most intimate architecture of Fernando Higueras.
Not many dare live underground and even less, if we talk about modern architects who practice the little pleasure - for some - of spectacle architecture. A house underground and… Who can perceive my most intimate architectural show !. The underground architecture It is not something that seems very attractive at first glance, but it has many advantages if the house is built correctly.
Hellcatcher, the house - studio and refuge of the master of architecture Fernando Higueras broke the rules established in modern design … The need to see the sun, sun and more sun !. But, nevertheless, it rescues the most traditional architecture and the best possible material, the land we step on, to achieve a virtue that few architects can achieve, to make a space invite to stay in a house underground.
«This idea saved my life thirty-some years ago, when my friend Francisco Nieva, when reading tarot to me, saw me within 3 years underground, with a cypress on top, when I leave 4 consecutive times death. He insisted that this did not mean that he was necessarily going to die. Then I came up with this first hell-scratcher … «
The Madrid house - studio that the architect built in the garden of his old house located in Madrid (1975-1977) is literally swallowed up in the ground….“Two square plants again by nine meters, dug under the garden of the house. It has excellent overhead light through 5 2x2m skylights. In it you can enjoy absolute silence and excellent temperature throughout the year without the need for air conditioning and hardly any heating. The upper floor in the shape of an “L”, by removing a 4.5 × 4.5m corner from the 9x9m square, creates a double height of seven meters through which excellent natural light descends. The ivy in the garden seek out night light and warmth, and turn the interior into a pleasant underground garden. "
Although there is a world of advantages and disadvantages of living underground, This is already an alternative to the common houses that many are beginning to consider and the truth is, they are not a bad idea. On the theme of cities, we also findunderground cities and par excellence, as examples, we find Montreal and Toronto (Canada) whose daily life for many of its inhabitants, in part, is underground.
The advantages of underground housing or in caves there are several and in many cases difficult to replicate in traditional architecture:
- If we look at the thermal behavior of a buried home, it is one of its greatest advantages over other types of constructions. Thanks to thermal inertia, this class of ecological and sustainable houses maintain an incessant temperature throughout practically the whole year without needing to provide large amounts of energy to air-condition the interior spaces.
- In a buried residence it maintains an interior temperature very close to thermal comfort: hot in winter and cool in summer. On average between 18º to 23º. Winters soften in its interior, since throughout the summer it absorbs the heat and this is released throughout the cold seasons, saving on heating and air conditioning. They take good advantage of the thermal qualities of the earth, whose incessant temperature is around 18 ° C.
- Relative humidity in average indoor air is around fifty percent which is healthier than in heated and air-conditioned rooms.
- The buried houses They are not only caves or residences excavated in mounds that are transformed into earthen architecture. This is about taking advantage of the land benefits for the benefit of the home.
- Another of its great advantages is that it integrates completely with the landscape, apart from managing superior acoustic insulation.
- Nor can we forget the protection and security that it offers us in the face of meteorological phenomena such as earthquakes or hurricane-force winds.
Although we can see many examples of houses underground in Spain, we are interested in knowing more about this project in:
- The excellent Yorokobu article by Alberto Triano (Screenplay by Marcus Hurst).
- To know more about its architecture, from the Doctoral Thesis"The critical thought of Fernando Higueras" With information from HERE we can go into his works.
- More images and size in METALOCUS more data HERE.
- Article El País The great architect cave HERE.
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