‘Cuevas del Pino’ Cave House in Spain by UMMOestudio

The Cuevas del Pino house is located in the foothills of Sierra Morena, one of the main mountain ranges in Spain. The architects from the Spanish architecture firm UMMOestudio arranged it right into one of the hollows in the rock that were originally formed by the stone extraction from the quarries and then used as small shelters for livestock watchmen.

UMMOestudio: ‘Both the pre-existing walls and the rock itself enclosed and defined an area of great spatial and material wealth, and for this reason, we decided to focus the intervention toward a fluid and continuous dialogue between those pre-existing conditions and the new architecture, always from a respectful position seeking proximity rather than direct contact.’

Within this dialogue, the architects formed a new spatial experience that managed to value the tectonic nature of the area through the use of new architectural elements: clean and quiet volumes, bright and ample spaces, use of stone materials for the floors like concrete or marble, glass openings to the south to provide natural light, and handcrafted wooden furniture to give warmth to the cave interior.