Lightweight dwelling
Location: Vilalba dels Arcs, Tarragona
The project originates from the client’s need to convert a warehouse into a home, located in the town center between party walls. The starting point was to preserve the warehouse use on the ground floor and renovate the first floor to transform it into a residential space.
The existing building, dating from 1980, was built with construction techniques and materials typical of its original function and presented significant structural limitations.
For this reason, the weight of the new home was a key factor in the design process, with the aim of minimizing additional loads and avoiding major structural reinforcements. The goal was to create a lightweight dwelling.
To achieve this, wood was used as the main material for both the structure and the finishes, which also helped improve indoor comfort, both thermally and aesthetically. The existing slab was reinforced, and the original fiber cement roof was replaced by two new roofs — one sloped and one flat.
This combination of roof slopes allows natural light to enter the central part of the home.
Although the exterior finish maintains the traditional Arabic tile to blend into the urban fabric, the total weight of the building was reduced by four to five times compared to a conventional concrete house.
This was made possible by using sandwich panel insulation, intermediate wooden floors, and leaving the structure exposed on the inside.
