Casa Balma Murada is a minimalist residence located on the Mediterranean Coast, designed by Mesura. The project begins with a material logic so literal it borders on poetic: stone removed from the ground to excavate the garage becomes the substance of the walls above it. This KM0 approach – sourcing construction material directly from the plot – collapses the distinction between site and structure, treating excavation not as erasure but as the first act of building. The practice echoes vernacular Mediterranean construction, where agricultural terraces and dry-stone enclosures arose from the same necessity of clearing land while retaining what was cleared.
Mesura builds the perimeter walls using traditional stone techniques without mortar, relying on mass and gravity rather than adhesives to hold the structure together. The inherent irregularity of the extracted stone becomes a structural asset: stratified courses accommodate minor ground shifts and channel water away from the foundation naturally. Thermal inertia follows from the same logic – thick walls absorb heat during the day and release it slowly at night, a passive climate strategy embedded in the material itself rather than added on through mechanical systems. The persistent coastal wind, rather than being sealed out, is managed through volumetric geometry and wall thickness, while the fragmented perimeter encourages cross-ventilation through controlled orientation.
The facade follows the topography rather than cutting across it. Each volume fragment tilts toward a specific view – the natural reserve, the sea, or the nearby village – so the house reads from outside as an aggregate of orientations rather than a single object. This is closer to how an agricultural settlement grows than how a residential commission typically proceeds. The relationship to local regulatory constraints reinforces that reading: the single-storey requirement, which might elsewhere produce compromise, here yields a building that hugs the ground and stays within the scale of the landscape.
