Architecture Wednesday: Es Pou

This is Es Pou, a single-family home in the island of Formentera, Spain. “Es Pou de Can Marianet Barber” is a historical place name in the interior of Formentera.

It sits on a rural plot in the midst of island farms, surrounded by ancient dry stacked stone walls. The home is oriented to the south, protected from the setting sun by a mass of vegetation, saving the most fertile soil for continued use as farmland.

The home itself is quite small, divided into three volumes; from south to north, the first volume houses a porch that offers solar protection, the second contains the more public program, and the third holds two bedrooms and a bath. Between the volumes are transverse strips that offer ventilation and lighting, as well as providing them with services and connections. A cistern out front makes the home  self-sufficient in terms of water supply.

The light, color, and material from the outside of the home is carried to  the interior, thanks to ceramics and wood. On colder days, the warmth of the earth is transferred to the ceiling and floors through Mallorcan-style ceramic ceiling vaults and pressed terracotta tiles. Those same tiles are used as façade cladding, roof finish, and even the headboard of the master bedroom.

The freshness associated with the color of the vegetation can be found on walls covered with vitrified ceramic tiles of a diluted green color; light filters inwards through its passage through ceramic lattices, generating, in turn, a constant changing of light and shadow.

It’s a simple home, on a simple plot of land, but it just screams peaceful. If only I could keep a plant alive, I could happily farm there.

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Amazing Architecture