El Búnker is a minimalist house located in Los Montesinos, Spain, designed by ABEZ. The project navigates a tension inherent to renovation work – how to honor what a space once meant while allowing it to accommodate new patterns of living. What began as a social gathering place tied to village festivities now transforms into a domestic environment, yet the intervention resists erasing the building’s former identity. Instead, the design establishes a dialogue between preservation and adaptation, treating the existing structure not as a constraint but as a framework that shapes contemporary inhabitation.
Positioned on an elongated plot tightly wedged between neighboring buildings in the city center, the house organizes itself longitudinally with a patio at one end functioning as a central point where primary rooms open outward. This relationship with exterior space becomes critical given the site’s constrained urban condition. As adjacent dwellings grew taller over time, blocking natural light, the design responds with two geometric roof openings that draw sunlight deep into the interior. These apertures create a direct relationship between light, time, and the building’s material history.
During excavation, workers revealed caliche – the region’s characteristic calcareous crust – exposing stratified layers of local geology. Rather than concealing this discovery, the design incorporates the stone at strategic moments, allowing it to surface as a reminder of what lies beneath. The new roof openings direct sunlight onto these exposed rock formations, establishing a dynamic interplay where light travels across stone surfaces throughout the day, rendering the passage of time physically visible within the domestic interior. This choreography of light and geology anchors the house in its specific landscape while creating atmospheric variation across daily cycles.
The floor plan abandons conventional corridor-based circulation in favor of interconnected spaces that function as a continuous sequence rather than discrete rooms. Without hallways separating programmatic zones, movement through the house requires passing through rooms themselves, blurring boundaries between circulation and habitation. This organization transforms the dwelling into a shared environment where daily routines unfold across linked spaces rather than isolated chambers, echoing the communal character of the building’s previous incarnation.
