Quarry House rocks nature’s artwork
Spanish home designed with onyx slabs has a city-and-seascape vista
High atop the hills of Spain’s southeastern port city of Valencia stands Quarry House — a testament to the innovative talents of its architect and named for the striking natural stone throughout the home.
Quarry House is designed as a series of boxes, built of white concrete, with Vulcano Onyx used for the large pillars and yellow onyx Neve D’Or for the central staircase.
As the day’s light fades, the designer’s artistry is revealed: The big slabs are backlit in an eye-catching show of the Earth’s tectonic layers.
The 6,565-square-foot residence, built by Spanish architect Ramon Esteve, is designed to “climb the hill” it is built into. Quarry House has its living space on the top level, with a sleek kitchen and living areas that look out past the swimming pool to the Mediterranean Sea.
The rear of the home nestles up against the forest. Bedrooms, along with a gym, are located on the lower levels and look up into the glass-bottomed pool.
Cross-ventilation in the home’s main rooms allow the house to be thermally regulated without any energy consumption. The wide roof also contains solar panels which support water heating.
Quarry House took just under two years to design and build, and was completed in 2017. Architect Ramón Esteve, of Ramón Esteve Estudio, in Valencia, answers a few questions about Quarry House: What inspired the design of the house? The conditions of the property, which were at first seen as a problem, became a starting point of the solution. Its position — on top of a hillside in a well-established housing estate — represented a serious challenge. Inspiration came when we decided to gain views to the landscape by climbing the slope. The roof appears to be completely open. Is it? One of the most characteristic elements of the house is a large, cantilevered metallic frame. Its design allows awnings to be used and extend the shade on the terrace.
The awnings are hidden when not needed, thus exhibiting the cantilever as a sculptural piece. How did you adjust to the terrain? We started from some complex conditions that made us rethink the usual layout of a dwelling, so we set the public area upstairs in order to get the best views.
The house is conceived as a set of boxes attached to the mountain slope that faces two oppos- ing landscapes: the Mediterranean Sea and the Mediterranean forest. The terraces are generated by overlapping these boxes. What about the large stone pillars? The onyx elements provide the rooms with a character in such a way that there is a sequence of scenes. The interior of the dwelling tries to transmit the same concepts of lightness and simplicity as the exterior volume. The home’s design has been conceived as a set of large, open spaces that acquire a personality just through these pieces.
This idea came out during a conversation with our client, who runs a company that distributes onyx marble. We all agreed that the inherent features of this stone would act in the rooms in an almost sculptural way, as if it was a background canvas. How did you build the stairs? The flight of stairs is one of the essential elements in the interior, due to both its position inside the house and its own making with backlit onyx pieces.
The large, solid onyx slabs work as open riser treads … This effect is the result of a patented new design for its internal structure.
We built several prototypes until we reached a system that, by means of a set of metallic profiles, worked both as a structural system and a support without casting any shadow.
As the day’s light fades, the artistry is revealed: The big slabs are backlit in a show of the Earth’s tectonic layers