The client asked for a unique hotel design in Albeida, at the beautiful headwaters of the Muros-Noia estuary: nine new, free-standing accommodation units to complement the rehabilitation of four traditional constructions, in addition to recovering another space, with a beautiful hórreo (raised granary) and masonry walls that gently outline the territory, now occupied by a large number of deciduous trees.
The powerful history of the traditional buildings (until recently the residence and recording studio of a musician who has composed some of the most relevant contemporary music in Galicia), as well as the conservation of the rich vegetation and the characteristics of the land, determined and enriched the design approach on several levels.
The first level, the broadest, involved an approach through the section, which gave us some initial areas for occupation, with the aim of maintaining privacy for each construction, but without giving up the beautiful views, between the branches, of the mouth of the Tambre river and the village of Noia that overlooks to the estuary, with the mountains of Barbanza as a backdrop.
On the second level, the approach continued with the exact definition of the new buildings, their precise locations, respecting the surrounding vegetation and the existing traditional constructions with which they are going to enter into a dialogue.
The new lightweight wooden structures sit atop the ground, preserving the roots of the trees, with which they mix naturally. The heights of the platforms, access routes and arrivals are adapted accordingly.
Arbitrary boundaries are erased and everything flows in a cordial conversation, because the natural and the artificial engage in a dialogue that draws on the past, settles in the present and stretches out towards the future.
Finally, the exact definition of the constructive solutions evokes a chain of relations: the wooden frameworks provide a system in which each new step is somehow presaged by the previous one, on the different scales of intervention, where both the supporting structures and the details of the furniture are resolved in the same way. Like on a musical staff, the different melodies are variations on a central theme, in honor of the most famous harps in the world, which filled this place with harmony for so many years.
