Casa 2302 by Nordest Arquitectura renovates a traditional stone farmhouse in Serra de Daro, Girona, transforming its fragmented interior into a light-filled sequence organized around a double-height central core that connects the rural approach, domestic rooms, and south garden.
Casa 2302 Technical Information
- ArchitectsNordest Arquitectura
- LocationSerra de Daro, Girona, Catalonia, Spain
- Gross Area602 m2 | 6,480 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years2025
- Photographs© Filippo Poli
We approached the farmhouse as a structure to be clarified rather than overwritten; the new central void connects entrance, garden, light, and circulation while keeping the old walls present as facades.
– Nordest Arquitectura
Rural Continuity and the Adapted Farmhouse
Casa 2302 begins with the authority of the existing farmhouse, a two storey stone masia whose symmetrical volume, terracotta roofscape, and rubble-stone walls remain the primary architectural reference. The renovation does not treat the old structure as a neutral envelope. Instead, it uses its massing and material depth to organize the new domestic program, preserving the legibility of the building within the agricultural plain of Emporda.
The new interventions are deliberately distinguishable from the inherited fabric. Board-formed concrete appears as a portal, ramp, and stair structure; black-framed glazing cuts through the central axis; timber shutters and oak linings mark points of occupation. This separation of materials avoids historical imitation while allowing the farmhouse to retain its constructive memory. The result is not a return to an idealized rural past, but a negotiation between continuity and adaptation.
The landscape is treated as an extension of the house rather than a decorative perimeter. A pale stone path, olive trees, cypress rows, a long swimming pool, pergolas, courtyards, and a covered side porch extend domestic life into the garden. These elements introduce leisure and outdoor occupation without erasing the agricultural character of the site, which remains defined by flat fields, tiled roofs, stone walls, and seasonal planting.
The Central Core as Interior Landscape
The principal spatial operation is the transformation of the former stair zone into a double-height, semi-exterior core. This space connects the entrance with the south garden and gives the house a new internal orientation. Rather than functioning only as circulation, the stair hall becomes a room of passage, threshold, and visual exchange, where the depth of the farmhouse is experienced from north to south.
The material assembly reinforces this ambiguous condition between interior and landscape. A board-formed concrete staircase rises along the rough stone wall, exposing its sawtooth underside and heavy balustrades. Timber beams, Catalan clay-tile vaults, gravel strips, and planted cacti introduce a sequence of textures that resist the smooth continuity of a typical renovated interior. The space has the character of a protected outdoor passage inserted within the old shell.
Within this central void, walls operate almost as exterior facades. Openings, ledges, storage volumes, and glazed partitions frame movement across levels and establish visual depth between rooms. The old stone walls are not flattened into background surfaces; they become active boundaries that register light, shadow, and circulation. This approach gives the house a renewed sectional clarity, especially where the upper studio overlooks the stair void.
Light, Transparency, and Programmatic Reorganization
Large glazed openings recalibrate the relationship between the farmhouse and its garden. The double-height entrance reads through the building to the south elevation, turning arrival into a visual axis. On the garden side, full-height glazing brings daylight into the core and exposes the internal stair to the exterior, making the renovated section of the house visible without overwhelming the original stone volume.
The kitchen and dining areas extend this logic of calibrated transparency. A galley kitchen with a pale concrete island runs along an exposed stone and brick wall, while the glazed gable opens toward a covered terrace with an outdoor cooking area. The porch becomes a climatic and programmatic buffer, neither fully interior nor fully exterior, allowing domestic routines to shift between enclosed preparation, shaded dining, and garden occupation.
The lateral rooms adopt a quieter spatial language. Living areas, bedrooms, and secondary spaces use soft tones, timber joinery, microcement floors, and built-in elements to reduce visual competition with the central core. This contrast is important: the house is not uniformly expressive. Its intensity is concentrated in the stone, concrete, and timber stair space, while the adjacent rooms provide more restrained settings for occupation.
Material Tension Between Vernacular Fabric and Contemporary Detail
The renovation depends on a direct material tension between vernacular fabric and precise contemporary detail. Rough stone walls, terracotta roof tiles, timber beams, and old studded doors remain visible alongside polished concrete floors, black steel frames, microcement surfaces, and oak cabinetry. The project avoids excessive smoothing, allowing joints, surfaces, and changes in construction technique to remain readable.
This strategy is most evident where new elements meet old walls. Concrete reveals frame openings without pretending to be masonry, oak storage volumes sit as inserted furniture rather than concealed partitions, and black glazed frames establish a measured graphic line against irregular stone. The architecture derives much of its character from these points of contact, where restoration and insertion are held in productive tension.
The bedrooms, bathrooms, and upper studio extend the same approach with less physical force. In the master suite, a plaster headboard and oak-lined picture window frame views toward olive and cypress trees. In the bathrooms, floating oak vanities, skylights, stone niches, and microcement partitions reduce the palette to texture, light, and proportion. The small studio on the upper floor, set beside exposed stone and timber ceilings, shows how the renovation uses intimate rooms to sustain the broader architectural order rather than distract from it.
About Nordest Arquitectura SLP
Nordest Arquitectura SLP is an architecture studio based in Catalonia, Spain, led by Jordi Riembau Ribot and Miquel Rusca Mestre for Casa 2302. In this project, the studio approaches the renovation of a traditional farmhouse with respect for its setting and heritage while introducing a contemporary architectural perspective through open interiors, light-filled sequences, and a material dialogue between stone, concrete, wood, and glass.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Structural engineers: Estructuras Calonge SL
- Construction company: Construccions Josep Alsina SL
- Technical architect: Jose Bahillo Gonzalez
- Installer: ITG Installadora Técnica Gironina 2020 SL
- Carpentry: Fernandez Fusters SL
- Kitchen: Cuines i Banys Prisman SL
- Metalwork: Forjats Fonteta SL
- Aluminum and glazing: Aluminis i Vidres Bisbal SL
- Plasterboard: Tabiplac Aillaments SL
- Blinds: Persiana Barcelona SL
- Photography: Filippo Poli
