Eco boutique hotel in Medieval Catalan Castle
Location: Baix Emporda, Catalonia, Spain. GFA: 800 sqm.
Architectural concept
Catalan vernacular architecture
In the soft light of the Emporda dusk, the castle reveals itself gradually - crenellated walls, a square defensive tower, and ironwork gates framed by cypress sentinels. Our studio was asked to imagine a second life for this singular property: an eco boutique hotel that honours eight centuries of Catalan vernacular architecture without freezing it in amber. The client, a discerning hospitality entrepreneur with a reverence for place, wished to offer guests not rooms but residencies - temporary belonging inside a living monument. We proposed a careful dialogue between the medieval and the contemporary, where new interventions whisper rather than shout, and where the land itself becomes an amenity as precious as any suite.
Spatial organisation
The existing 800 sqm footprint is distributed across two floors of the principal mass, with secondary volumes embedded within the curtain wall. The ground floor gathers communal life: a series of linked reception halls, a kitchen-dining room oriented toward the inner courtyard, and one guest suite with private bath. The upper floor holds three further suites, two with en-suite facilities, and a terrace that opens directly above the moat-pool - a threshold where interior comfort and open landscape become indistinguishable. The dry-moat pool conversion is perhaps our most poetic gesture: a fortification element reborn as a place of leisure, the forged-iron bridge now a promenade between castle and water.
Materials and climate
locally quarried Emporda limestone
The Baix Emporda sits at the meeting of the Pyrenean foothills and the Costa Brava coastline, with mean annual temperatures around 15 degrees Celsius, long luminous summers, and the tramuntana wind as a defining climatic protagonist. Our material palette defers entirely to the region. Load-bearing walls remain in locally quarried Emporda limestone, a warm ochre stone that absorbs heat through the day and releases it gently through cool nights - thermal mass as old as the castle itself. Interior floors are finished in hand-cut Catalan hydraulic tile, their geometric patterns referencing the neoclassical balustrade garden visible in the grounds. Timber elements - doors, ceiling beams, the octagonal belvedere structure - are sourced in reclaimed Pyrenean oak, its surface density resisting both humidity and the drying effect of the tramuntana.
Bioclimatic strategy
Passive climate control was the foundation of every spatial decision. The castle's original builders understood orientation intuitively, and we followed their logic: principal rooms face south-southeast, capturing winter solar gain while the deep stone reveals provide natural shading when the summer sun climbs high. Cross-ventilation through courtyard typology drives the cooling strategy - the inner patio acts as a thermal chimney, drawing air from the shaded north side and exhausting heat upward through the tower openings. During the hottest weeks of July and August, when Emporda temperatures reach 34 degrees Celsius, this passive circuit reduces mechanical cooling demand by an estimated 40 percent. Pergolas clad in local wisteria and grapevine on the terrace provide bioclimatic solar shading that is also unmistakably Mediterranean in character.
Energy and sustainability
CTE DB-HE energy efficiency standard
Our studio designed the retrofit to meet the Spanish CTE DB-HE energy efficiency standard, with enhanced envelope insulation inserted invisibly within the existing wall cavity to preserve the historic stone exterior. A ground-source heat pump serves the underfloor heating circuit in guest suites - the stable subsoil temperature of 14 degrees Celsius making geothermal exchange unusually efficient at this latitude. A photovoltaic array, integrated flush into a south-facing agricultural outbuilding roof rather than the castle itself, generates sufficient energy to cover common-area lighting and pool filtration year-round. Rainwater harvesting channels feed the landscape irrigation system, reducing mains consumption by 60 percent across the dry summer season.
Landscape
The five-hectare estate is its own argument for staying. Our landscape concept layers three distinct garden rooms: the formal approach along the cypress-lined cobbled drive; the Japanese-inflected garden reached by the wooden octagonal belvedere bridge; and the illuminated meadow of bioluminescent garden light installation, where slender-stemmed spheres in rose, cobalt, and crystal scatter colour across the gravel at dusk - as the image shows, a glowing blue blown-glass centrepiece anchors this space, encircled by luminous seating that invites guests to linger long after dinner. Native planting - cistus, rosemary, Aleppo pine, cherry and almond in spring blossom - extends the outdoor season from March through November. The pool terrace, elevated above the moat, offers panoramic views toward the hills Salvador Dali once walked.
In architecture, as in all true luxury, refinement is measured not by what is added, but by what is quietly, precisely, and permanently kept.
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