Residential · Mallorca, Spain · 2023

The Meridian House

A house that faces the sun, then learns to step out of it.

Overview

The Meridian House sits on a gentle rise among old holm oaks, turned so that every room meets the sun at the right hour. The living level is a single room: glass on three sides, travertine underfoot, and the garden as its fourth wall.

Above it, a travertine volume cantilevers six metres to the south. It shades the terrace at noon, frames the view at dusk, and holds the bedrooms quietly away from the day.

Every stone was chosen at the quarry and every joint was drawn at full size. The result is a house that feels less built than settled.

Location: Mallorca, Spain
Year: 2023
Status: Completed
Typology: Residential
Coordinates: 39.6953° N, 3.0176° E

We wanted the house to feel as if the hill had always been waiting for it.

Halden & Voss

Gallery

A closer look.

Nine images. Select any one to see it full screen.

04 / 09The living room in late sun, with travertine walls and a long walnut console

The house in motion

The sun does the moving.

Late afternoon in the living room. Light through the holm oaks drifts across the travertine floor.

Drawings

Drawn to be built.

Plan, section and elevation, from the entry to the terrace, each drawn to scale on the structural grid.

The ground floor, set out on a 6 × 5 m structural grid.30 × 15 m · 5 rooms · 464 m² ground floor

Materials

Made of few things.

Four materials, chosen at the source and left to age. Nothing is painted to look like something else.

Honed Travertine
Selected in blocks at the quarry, honed and never polished. It warms in the sun and stays cool underfoot.
Oiled Walnut
Book-matched panels, oiled by hand and left to darken. The grain runs unbroken from floor to ceiling.
Low-iron Glass
Without the green cast of ordinary glass, so the landscape reads true from edge to edge.
Fair-faced Concrete
Cast once, in timber formwork we draw ourselves. The tie holes stay: they are how you read the pour.