The Hotel Masía Can Farrés, located within Spain’s Montserrat Natural Park, offers a compelling integration of architecture and landscape. Designed by scob, the project transforms the outdoor spaces of a historical 15th-century farmhouse into a contemporary hotel, emphasizing a sensitive dialogue with its geological and cultural context. The intervention melds architecture with its environment, allowing the structure to harmoniously exist within its extraordinary site.
Hotel Masía Can Farrés Technical Information
- Architects1-2: scob
- Location: El Bruc, Spain
- Gross Area: 5,500 m2
- Project Years: 2023 – 2024
- Photographs: © Judith Casas
The project re-establishes the historic alliance between architecture and landscape, functioning as an interpretive medium rather than a constructed barrier.
– scob Architects
Hotel Masía Can Farrés Photographs
Contextual Resonance and Site Integration
Can Farrés resides within the Montserrat Natural Park, an area imbued with profound geological and cultural symbolism. This deep-rooted connection to its environment is a guiding force behind the design strategies that scob employs. The architects have harnessed the local geology, especially the dominant conglomerate rock, to shape the pathways, platforms, and retaining walls around the property. This choice ensures that the architecture does not impose itself on the landscape but rather harmonizes with it.
The integration of handcrafted ceramic bricks and light steel trellises offers more than just aesthetic appeal; these elements evoke historical agricultural practices, knitting together the region’s cultural past with contemporary use. By embedding these materials within the site, the design underscores a union between tradition and innovation, facilitating a seamless blend between the historical identity of the place and its modern functionality.
Hotel Masía Can Farrés Design Approach
Scob’s design work thrives on empathetic interpretation rather than authoritative imposition, resulting in a landscape intervention that reads less as a collection of discrete objects and more as a cohesive system. This approach acknowledges the inherent topography, local light conditions, and the rhythms of communal activities, thus crafting a spatial experience that is both respectful and resonant.
By viewing the site as an interpretive medium, the project transforms the engagement between architecture and landscape into a dialogue, re-establishing a historic relationship. The intervention is mindful of its temporal and spatial context, thereby dissolving the boundaries between constructed forms and the organic landscape, and fostering harmonious interactions.
Crafting Atmosphere and Experience
The architectural intervention at Can Farrés cultivates an introspective environment infused with local identity, providing guests with a deeply connected experience with the mountain’s spirituality. The configuration of spaces, terraces, footpaths, and rest areas is designed to enhance a sense of serene contemplation, connecting materials, memories, and the scenic horizon.
These spatial arrangements encourage a reflective, unhurried exploration, engaging guests with both the built environment and the enfolding natural world. The thoughtful design of these elements fosters an atmosphere of tranquility, promoting a deeper connection to the site’s environmental and cultural narrative.
Sustainability and Ecological Sensitivity
Environmental stewardship is paramount in the project, with sustainable elements woven throughout. Existing features such as stone walls and terraces are repurposed, aligning with the project’s commitment to the exclusive use of native plant species to enrich local biodiversity. This prioritization underscores an eco-sensitive approach, reducing ecological disruption while enhancing the natural habitat.
The design incorporates porous pavements and passive water management systems, reflecting a commitment to efficient resource use while respecting the park’s ecology. Furthermore, the deliberate avoidance of high-intensity lighting minimizes light pollution, preserving the natural park’s character and ensuring minimal impact on its delicate ecosystem.
Hotel Masía Can Farrés Image Gallery
About scob
Scob is a design and landscape architecture studio based in Barcelona and Madrid, founded with the focus on merging architecture and landscape into a cohesive discipline. Emphasizing sustainability, empathy, and shared well-being, Scob creates impactful public spaces, parks, gardens, and rehabilitations that foster meaningful interactions between people, territory, and ecology.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: Can Farrés. Hotel Masía
- Other contributors: Laia Ruiz, Itziar Pennes
