Premio Internazionale Domus Restauro e Conservazione 2013: Estate in Extremadura shortlisted

The Estate in Extremadura was shortlisted in 2013 for the Domus Restauro e Conservazione Prize of the University of Ferrara.

The Premio Internazionale Domus Restauro e Conservazione was founded at the University of Ferrara, with the support of Fassa Bortolo, to recognise interventions in existing buildings that interpret the principles of conservation with rigour. It is judged by a jury of professors of restoration from Italy and Spain, chaired in 2013 by Giovanni Carbonara.

In its fourth edition, in 2013, the jury shortlisted ÁBATON’s Estate in Extremadura, completed in 2010, in the section for built works. The project appears in the prize’s official brochure alongside the works awarded medals and mentions.

The starting point was an abandoned cattle shed in the province of Cáceres, facing south and sheltered by the Sierra de Gredos. The project did not replace it with a new house: it turned it into a family country house, repeating the existing volumes and materials, the local stone and the tiled roofs. Inside, the load-bearing walls gave way to steel columns to open up a large living room and kitchen towards the valley.

The estate also lives off the grid. Solar panels cover the summer months and, in winter, two streams on the property drive small turbines; a natural pool takes the place of a swimming pool. Restoration, in this case, also meant letting the house run on what the place already offered.

That same year, the project received the jury award in the +Sustainability category of Architizer’s first A+Awards.

Source: official brochure of the fourth Premio Internazionale Domus Restauro e Conservazione (Università di Ferrara).