A thoughtfully designed brick home in Barcelona's Cardedeu neighborhood demonstrates how modern architecture can evolve with a family's changing needs. The 2,500-square-foot residence, known as Patio House, was created by Sigla Studio for a young couple with two children who sought a living space that could adapt to different stages of family life without requiring renovations.
The clients came from a conventional apartment with compartmentalized spaces, poor ventilation, and no outdoor connection. They desired a house with generous spaces, natural light, a garden, and a pool—essentially a new living environment that would grow with them over time. Rather than seeking a spectacular home, they wanted something useful, sober, and built with purpose.
The project's design philosophy was influenced by the architects' visit to sculptor Georg Kolbe's house museum in Berlin. Built in 1928 by architect Ernst Rentsch, the building impressed them with its silent architecture, integrated garden, and timeless relevance. This concept of consciously inhabiting the passage of time became central to their approach for the Barcelona project.
Situated on a narrow, deep plot typical of the area where high land prices create small, densified sites, the house strategically occupies nearly the entire maximum buildable footprint on the ground floor. This approach not only optimizes space but creates a patio house where the built perimeter defines a clear, intimate, and autonomous interior. The load-bearing side walls function as both boundary and filter, protecting domestic life from neighboring constructions while framing views toward private patios.
The two-story residence organizes its main program on the ground floor, featuring an entrance hall, kitchen, dining room, living room, full bathroom, laundry, garage, and multipurpose room. The upper floor contains two large rooms that can be subdivided into four bedrooms, with a central space serving as a generous distributor that may also function as an area for study, play, or reading. The entire organization revolves around two key openings: the entrance patio and the pool patio, which guarantee cross ventilation and natural light throughout all rooms.
The house's structure showcases handmade brick from Forn d'Obra Duran, one of the few active artisanal kilns in Catalonia. These bricks are made using traditional methods: natural clay, slow drying, and wood firing, ensuring no two pieces are identical. This intentional imperfection contributes to the material's beauty and character. The brick serves not merely as cladding but builds the entire envelope, including vertical and horizontal elements, exterior pavements, finishes, sills, and copings.
Interior materials remain deliberately minimal, featuring microcement floors on the ground floor, natural parquet upstairs, chestnut wood in built-in furniture, and exposed ceramic vaults in the ceilings. The bathrooms combine microcement with glazed tiles from Ceràmica Ferrés. The design avoids false ceilings or ornamental claddings, resolving everything through constructive detailing. All furniture pieces were selected based on functional criteria, using honest and durable materials that maintain coherence with the overall design.
The project's most significant feature is its essential temporal dimension of flexibility. The structure and organization allow the house to adapt to changing inhabitant needs without requiring construction work or renovations. Currently, parents sleep on the upper floor with a suite and dressing room facing two interconnected children's rooms. In the future, they may move to the ground floor while children occupy interconnected spaces for sleeping, playing, studying, and living.
This capacity for transformation over time was integral to the initial design intention. Rather than imposing fixed uses, the house opens up possibilities for diverse lives, different ways of inhabiting, and future generations. In an era of rapid change, the architects champion the idea of a space that not only resists but adapts, welcoming various lifestyles and evolving family dynamics.
Photographed by Marta Vidal, the completed project represents a mature reflection on contemporary residential design, demonstrating how thoughtful architecture can provide both stability and adaptability for modern family life while maintaining connection to traditional building methods and materials.
