In Germany, it insulates with plastic foam plates and foil that are unnatural materials. Many people are not comfortable with the idea of living in a large, airtight plastic bag. And often the result is not good. The cork houses of the Spanish architect Emiliano López and Mónica Rivera show, how beautiful, sustainable and natural Building can be, if you covered the surface of the building with the natural material cork.
The Ensemble of the buildings have been called simply “Two cork houses”. A special charm is created through the Interaction of the cork and the trees in the surrounding grove in the area of Plafrugell, in the North of Spain. Sustainability extends not only to the choice of materials, the houses were so planned and built that take into consideration the soil and the forest. Of course, you will cover a certain amount of floor area, but the houses are floating over the ground, in order to keep the changes as small as possible.
“The houses are uneven and steep terrain, which was changed as little as possible,” said the architects. “The existing Vegetation has been preserved and with the new Mediterranean plantings upgraded, giving the impression that the place has changed after the surgery, barely.”
The larger of the two houses measures 247 square meters, the smaller 112 sqm. They were built with a concrete Foundation and pillars. The interior got wood walls, the trim consists of the outside from a double layer of insulating cork. The houses without air-tight plastic seal have achieved the energy class A. “The use of cork as a Material for the finishing of the facades will support the ecological adaptability in a wooded, dominated by cork oaks.”
The exterior walls of the bark of the cork oak and the bright interior made of wood to achieve the impression of how to live in a tree house in the middle of the grove, as the house was a part of the forest. Great value axis at the planning point of view, in the building and the surrounding landscape laid out. Possible of this game with the light, because the houses act as an optical resonance chamber. All the rooms flowing into each other, on the typical insulation of doors and corridors has been omitted, the interior spaces, almost airy as the surrounding forest.
Source: Emiliano López Mónica Rivera Arquitectos
