Villa in Upper Marbella
Location: Marbella, Andalusia, Spain. GFA: 1000 sqm.
Architectural concept
Perched within the elevated hillside terrain of Las Chapas, one of the most sought-after residential enclaves above Marbella, this villa presented our studio with a rare and compelling brief - to reconcile the deep vernacular memory of Andalusian domestic architecture with the expectations of a thoroughly contemporary way of life. The client, a cosmopolitan family with a deep appreciation for landscape and light, asked us to create a home that would feel both rooted in its Mediterranean surroundings and entirely liberated from the visual noise of the ordinary. What emerged is a residence of considered restraint and quiet authority - where every decision, from orientation to material texture, serves the specific choreography of life under the Andalusian sun.
Spatial organisation
The villa is organised across a generous 1000 sqm footprint, with the principal living volumes arranged along a single east-west axis to capture the prevailing sea breeze and command the panoramic Mediterranean views that define the site. The ground floor dissolves almost entirely into the landscape through full-height thermally broken glazed sliding systems, creating a seamless threshold between the interior living area and the broad stone terrace beyond. The covered outdoor loggia - shaded by the deep roof overhang and dressed with terracotta-coloured umbrella canopies - serves as a natural extension of the interior, a place where the family gathers through the long Andalusian afternoon without retreating from the warmth of the outdoors.
Materials and climate
hand-laid Mediterranean terracotta barrel tiles
The exterior palette pays deliberate homage to the regional building tradition. The roof is finished in hand-laid Mediterranean terracotta barrel tiles, their sun-bleached ochre tones absorbing and radiating heat in precisely the rhythm the local climate demands - warm in the cool mornings of spring, shedding heat rapidly after sundown. Walls are rendered in a smooth white lime plaster, a material deeply embedded in the domestic architecture of southern Spain, whose high solar reflectance reduces surface temperatures by several degrees during the peak summer months of July and August, when Marbella regularly records ambient temperatures above 33 degrees Celsius. Poolside terracing is finished in crushed aggregate resin-bound stone, pale in tone to minimise heat retention underfoot - a comfort detail that matters profoundly to a family with children.
Bioclimatic strategy
The climatic logic of this project is inseparable from its architecture. Marbella enjoys more than 320 days of sunshine per year and a mild average winter temperature of approximately 12 degrees Celsius - conditions that reward passive design with exceptional returns. The deep roof eaves and the covered loggia act as a solar shading system, precisely calibrated to exclude the high summer sun angle above 70 degrees while admitting the low winter sun that warms the stone floor slab throughout the cooler months. Cross-ventilation is engineered through the strategic placement of openings on opposing facades, drawing the prevailing south-westerly coastal breeze through the interior without mechanical assistance during the long shoulder seasons of spring and autumn.
Energy and sustainability
building-integrated photovoltaic array
The roofline carries a building-integrated photovoltaic array, visibly expressed as a considered architectural element rather than a retrofitted afterthought - a position our studio holds firmly across all projects of this type. The installation is sized to offset the majority of the villa's operational energy demand, including pool filtration and climate control. Wall and roof assemblies incorporate high-performance mineral wool insulation to meet and exceed the requirements of the Spanish Technical Building Code, the Codigo Tecnico de la Edificacion, with particular attention to the DB-HE energy efficiency chapter. A high-efficiency heat pump system provides supplementary heating and cooling, drawing on the stable ground temperature of the Las Chapas hillside.
Landscape
The 140,000 sqm estate is approached as a bioclimatic resource in its own right. The planting palette is drawn entirely from the indigenous flora of the Andalusian littoral - stone pine, cypress, agave, rosemary, and wild flowering meadow grasses that require minimal irrigation once established and that frame the freeform natural-finish swimming pool as a piece of living landscape rather than a constructed amenity. The pool itself is shaped organically, its shallow entry beach allowing the water surface to read as a natural extension of the terrain - a gesture that brings the eye gently toward the horizon. The outdoor season here is genuinely year-round, and our studio designed the terrace and loggia accordingly, as primary living spaces rather than seasonal supplements.
Luxury, in a project such as this, is expressed not in excess but in proportion - in the silence between a white wall and the sound of water, and in the discipline to let the landscape speak.
¿Te interesa un proyecto similar?
Hablemos de tu visión y creemos algo extraordinario juntos.
Contáctanos
