White volumes over a walnut soffit, the pool running to the edge of the terrace

Residential · Marbella, Spain · 2024

The Walnut House

White by day, warm by evening.

Overview

The Walnut House is two white volumes stacked slightly out of line, so each floor shades the one below it. Every overhang is lined in oiled walnut, which turns the colour of honey in the last hour of sun.

The ground floor opens entirely to the terrace. The pool runs to the edge of the stone and the sea beyond it, so from the living room the water seems to carry on to the horizon.

Location: Marbella, Spain
Year: 2024
Status: Completed
Typology: Residential
Coordinates: 36.5101° N, 4.8825° W

In August the house is all shade. In December it is all light.

Halden & Voss

Drawings

Drawn to be built.

Plan, section and elevation, from the entry to the pool 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 · 450 m² ground floor

Materials

Made of few things.

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

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.
Honed Travertine
Selected in blocks at the quarry, honed and never polished. It warms in the sun and stays cool underfoot.