Tour a Spanish house that's the perfect minimalist prefab

view of minimalist spanish house Casa Guadalupe by studio hanghar, a white house with dark timber accents

(Image credit: Rory Gardiner)

Minimalist moves and industrial prefabrication meet in a Spanish house, Casa Guadalupe, designed in Gijón, Asturias, by architecture studio Hanghar. The project, explain its architects, led by practice founder Eduardo Mediero, is conceived as a ‘contemporary form of housing grounded in industrialised construction'. It was carefully crafted to blend 21st-century building methods, sustainable architecture and a deep connection to its surrounding landscape.

view of minimalist Casa Guadalupe by studio hanghar, a white house with dark timber accents

Tour new Spanish house Casa Guadalupe by Hanghar

Casa Guadalupe is set in an environment that feels more rural than urban, the architects elaborate. As a result, the design sought to follow the terrain's lines and open up to the long natural vistas afforded by its privileged, high position. In this context, adopting a minimalist attitude felt fitting, setting the house in gentle juxtaposition with – but not imposing upon – the rich surroundings.

At the same time, it was important for the architects to compose an architectural vocabulary for the home that felt restrained and methodical. This allowed them to use modular construction methods in order to have a minimal impact on the land. Indeed, the structure was fully prefabricated in a workshop, its parts simply transported, ready-made, and assembled on site. It comprises a lightweight steel structure, a façade made from sandwich panels, insulation, and a corrugated metal roof.

The prefabrication not only led to minimised earthworks and significantly less disruption to flora and fauna than if conventional foundations and building methods were used, it also meant that the house was erected in a mere 48 hours. The design is able to overcome the site’s slope by being raised on stilts.

The architects say: 'Through [a] technical approach, Casa Guadalupe proposes a different way of understanding prefabricated housing: not as a standardised product, but as a flexible system capable of producing architecture with character, spatial quality, and a precise relationship to its surroundings. The project offers a viable alternative to traditional methods, one that is faster, more controlled, and more easily replicated, aligned with current demands for sustainable, well-built housing.'

Inside, this Spanish house feels fresh and contemporary, bringing a warm minimalism to the fore, framing vistas and allowing the context to take centre stage, while opening up an important discussion about the impact of 21st-century construction.

hanghar.com

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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).