The project is based on the idea of fully utilizing this built heritage and, from this monumental structure, introducing new elements capable of accommodating the specific activities of the school while simultaneously introducing an appropriate scale and suitable finishing materials to domesticate the space.

All new elements are constructed with light industrial components so that their installation occurs as an on-site assembly. This approach aims to clearly contrast with the existing warehouses, thereby establishing an open dialogue between the preexisting and the new.

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The expansion is arranged longitudinally over one side of the back garden and it is resolved with a big iron beam which intersects (and undermines) part of the existing house. The beam that is held by an inverted V pilar evinces the strength and places the different elements in balance. It also allows a total opening to the exterior and makes the production sector, like in a theater, a part of the arden’s visual scenery.

From a material point of view, the preexisting sectors are restored keeping the original floors and woodwork, and the vertical surfaces and ceiling are taken to white as a way of erasing the weight of a previos inhabit.

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The house itself is divided into two concentric parts – the inner and the outer. The inner part is comprised of basic dwelling components and laid out on a Palladian 3×3 grid with a vertically accented dining room in its centre. The outer part consists of the additional programme – patios of different size and proportion, garage, pool and storages. It forms an in–between space, neither a house, nor a garden. It serves as a mediator between both of them.

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The house has 2 entrances: The daily income is given by the lower part of the lot, while the main income is presented at the top of it. The street level is above the roof, which acts as a large reception square/viewpoint, from where you can see an imposing view of the mountains and the city of Cordoba. It is covered with reinforced concrete and flooded, resolving the materiality of the square, providing thermal and energy balance inside, at a low cost and contributing to the natural environment. The materiality of the house follows the concept of the use of raw, bare noble materials, expressing its nature and generating a respectful relationship with the environment. In addition to concrete, local stone, wood and glass were used.

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This project aims to maintain the essence of the farm and its functional features. The southern wing has been turned into the so-called winter house. During spring and summer time, the central area, previously occupied by the barn and the workshop, is designed to be used as a semi-exterior space for work and storage. A completely new passage, made of poplar wood, connects the winter house to the full-height central space.

“Matérialité brute”

The structure of the farm has been uncovered, revealing the raw structural materials: concrete for the new openings, poplar timber for the woodwork, steel tie bars for the reinforcement of the walls, small bricks and rough-hewn stones of the existing walls, and lime plaster to smooth the imperfections of the existing wall.

All the materials used in the project are natural: the insulation is made of wood wool, the new partitions are in poplar timber, and the new fireplace is made of small bricks that were collected during the renovation work.

A sober and contemporary aesthetic has been adopted to preserve and emphasise the rural nature of the site. The architectural approach focused on unveiling the intrinsic qualities of the existing building, while adapting it to a new residential use.

A “drinking trough” pool

The swimming pool is inspired to a water trough. Thick, large concrete edges mark the profile of the swimming pool. The pool floor is entirely black, evoking the tar coating of the old tobacco dryer barn next to it. The dark pool transforms into a mirror where the surrounding trees reflect their image.

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Half a century later, Cowan Court turns the picturesque Brutalism of the original college towards the 21st century. Sustainability, accessibility, landscape and a new approach to communal and private space transform the raw sensuality of the brick and board marked concrete courts of the original college into an innovative, contemporary, low-energy timber building. The staircase that traditionally serves and defines a vertical community of rooms becomes a cloister, bringing circulation towards social spaces positioned around enclosed landscaped woodland at the centre of the building. The rooms served by the central cloister are all fully accessible and frame views outwards, towards Churchill’s extensive open playing fields and meadows.

Three storeys, square court, the same footprint as the existing courts: Cowan Court evolves many features of the original college buildings. The untreated reclaimed oak cladding echoes the textured board marked concrete and the colour of brick in the original college. New pale oak adds refinement in the lining to the cloister and triple glazed windows. The bay windows, characteristic of original student rooms, reappear as deep window seats within the thick, insulated walls of the energy efficient new building. In summer, the densely planted birch forest within the court shades an informal garden for students to meet and study, which turns to orange in autumn and opens to the sky in winter.

The materiality of Cowan Court forms part of an ambitious environmental strategy; passive ventilation, triple glazing and super insulation reduces the amount of energy consumed in construction and in use. Solar electricity, solar water heating and rainwater collection reduce the energy requirements yet further.

6a won an international competition to design this first new court in the college in 2008. The existing buildings were designed by Sheppard Robson following one of the most important architectural competitions of the post-war period. Today, the listed college is one of the finest examples of English Brutalism in the UK. Cowan Court responds to the original in a contemporary timber construction. In three overhanging floors, the jettying timber cuts recall the concrete bands across the facades of the existing courts. Each of the facades is curved like the entasis of a classical column, and the square windows of the student rooms spiral up and across, chasing around corners in playful misalignment.

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Inside the houses, the structural wood is left exposed, resulting in an atmosphere that is closer to the surrounding woodland than to the sea five hundred meters away.

The use of cork as a material for finishing the façades supports its environmental adaptability in a wooded landscape dominated by the presence of cork trees.

Intimate in scale, the indoor spaces are linked to one another without passageways in a sequence of rooms of varying size, their uses being defined by their relationship to the outside, be it the distant view of the sea, the vision of the tops of the pines or the direct means of access to the terrain.

The main floor of the larger house is extended via a free-standing sandblasted concrete canopy which forms two ample terraces —suspended among the pines— with views of the sea and the coastal mountain range.

Both houses obtained a Class A energy rating (highest achievable by Spanish standards) with an annual energy consumption of 41.44 and 46.22 kWh/m2 and emissions of 7.04 and 7.88 kg of CO2/m2 a year.

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The over-height space between the shell and building envelope is the highlight of the house and at the same time its centre. This area is connected to the outdoors via a large window. Narrow skylight-slits in the roof and along the integrated shell bring light into the sculptural interior. At its core it is a wooden installation that divides and connects the entrance, cloakroom, kitchen, dining area, living room and lounge. The precise carpentry work makes the functions in these areas disappear into an all-enveloping abstract sculpture.

Access to the upper floors in the installed shell is gained via seamlessly built minimalistic stairs made from solid wood steps. The bedroom, study and bathroom are separated by built-in wall cabinets. The walls and doors are aligned with no projections.

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