{"id":70026,"date":"2026-08-20T08:19:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T08:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/a-emotional-livingwork-reinterpreta-la-arquitectura-que-dio-forma-a-las-casas-de-masovers-de-lemporda\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T15:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T15:21:09","slug":"a-emotional-livingwork-reinterprets-the-architecture-that-shaped-the-masovers-houses-of-lemporda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/a-emotional-livingwork-reinterprets-the-architecture-that-shaped-the-masovers-houses-of-lemporda\/","title":{"rendered":"A! Emotional living&work reinterprets the architecture that shaped the masovers’ houses of l’Empord\u00e0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Building in l’Empord\u00e0 always meant negotiating with the tramontana wind, with stony ground that rarely offers an easy plane, with long, dry summers that call for shade before glazed surface. The region’s vernacular architecture responded, more than to any aesthetic ideal, to that set of conditions specific to the place. The local stone walls, thick and bound with lime mortar, insulated against summer heat and winter wind. The openings, small and few, protected the interior without entirely giving up light. On the large estates, next to the owner’s mas, stood the casa de masovers, a more modest dwelling for the family who worked the land under the masoveria system and who, in exchange for living on the estate and cultivating it, received a share of the harvest. This house, tied to the pens, the vegetable garden, and the working spaces, was built with the same materials as the rest of the local architecture, but at a more domestic, compressed scale<\/p>\n\n\n

The system dissolved over the course of the twentieth century, with the mechanization of farming and rural exodus, but the houses remained standing. Today, much of that minor heritage is being renovated for new uses \u2014 in many cases as rural tourism accommodation, or as family housing, like this former casa de masovers in Solius, in the Baix Empord\u00e0, whose full renovation is signed by A! Emotional living & work<\/a> and estudioDOM<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

The commission came from a family seeking to enjoy the Mediterranean character of l’Empord\u00e0 with a lifestyle turned toward the outdoors. The project recovers the 250 m\u00b2 built across two floors and adds two newly built outdoor spaces \u2014 a pergola and a summer dining area \u2014 following the owners’ wishes.<\/p>\n\n

\n
\n
\"\"
The Mediterranean blue that runs through the whole house unifies old and new under a single criterion.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
\"\"
The living room, a space designed both for summer evenings facing the garden and for winter days by the fire.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
\"\"
The dining room, next to the kitchen, revolves around a round solid-wood table.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
\"\"
The kitchen is organized around a peninsula that acts as a transition toward the dining room and adds a breakfast area.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Mediterranean blue, the connecting thread<\/h2>\n\n\n

Against the white and light wood that dominate the rest of the house, a single shade of Mediterranean blue runs through the whole home. It is the color of the interior joinery, doors and windows, and also of the facade shutters. This color acts as a standout element that unifies old and new under a single criterion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An open space for the day area<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On the ground floor, the day area is resolved as an open, continuous space. The kitchen, in white with exposed joinery in the same blue as the shutters, is organized around a peninsula that acts as a transition toward the dining room and adds a breakfast area. Hydraulic tile, suspended brass lamps, and a wooden display cabinet with glass doors give character to a space designed for everyday use.<\/p>\n\n\n

The dining room, next to the kitchen, revolves around a round solid-wood table. A vertical-slat divider separates it visually from the living room without interrupting the light between the two rooms. In the living room, the white-framed fireplace and an aged paneled mirror concentrate the life of the house in the cold months; a second slat divider, independent from the one in the dining room, serves as a backrest for the sofa and dialogues with the custom joinery of the shelving. A space designed both for summer evenings facing the garden and for winter days by the fire.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"
The main bedroom opens onto the garden through two large blue windows.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Main bedroom open to the garden<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On the sleeping floor, the main bedroom opens onto the garden through two large blue windows. The atmosphere is built with a few well-chosen elements \u2014a tufted upholstered headboard, a chest of drawers with rustic lines, a valet stand\u2014 set against walls in neutral tones and textiles in blue-green, in a space that deliberately renounces accumulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outdoor garden, with the new pergola as protagonist of the renovation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If something sets this project apart, it is that much of its brief was resolved outside the existing walls. The centerpiece is a wooden pergola built to measure for the space, raised on a deck and enclosed on its perimeter with lattice screens, with views over the Empord\u00e0 landscape, a space designed to prolong summer sobremesas in the shade of the pines. Next to it, a porch already existing in the house has been transformed into a summer dining area, with a wooden kitchen and a masonry barbecue clad in exposed brick, and a large dining table.<\/p>\n\n\n

That commitment to the outdoors is the logical continuation of the spirit of the original house, an agricultural structure always conceived in direct relation to the land surrounding it. The casa de masovers in Solius no longer works the land, but it still organizes itself around it, and in that \u2014more than in the stone or the tile it retains\u2014 lies its continuity with the history the building preserves.<\/p>\n\n

\n
\n
\"\"
The already existing porch has been transformed into a summer dining area.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
A wooden pergola built to measure, raised on a deck and enclosed on its perimeter with lattice screens.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Project<\/strong>: Full renovation, Casa de masovers.
Location<\/strong>: Solius, Baix Empord\u00e0 (Girona).
Scope<\/strong>: Full interior design of the home + design and construction of new pergola and barbecue area.
Surface area<\/strong>: 250 m\u00b2 across two floors.
Completed<\/strong>: 2026.
Interior design and creative direction<\/strong>: A! Emotional living & work<\/a> y estudioDOM<\/a> \u2014 Araceli Us\u00f3n y Varvara Shabardina.
Photography<\/strong>: Estella Rotger Marti<\/a>.
Styling<\/strong>: Sol Van Dorssen<\/a>.
Source<\/strong>: Boutique de Comunicaci\u00f3n<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"
Araceli Us\u00f3n, Interior Designer and founder of A! Emotional living&work<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Araceli Us\u00f3n. A! Emotional living&work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Araceli Us\u00f3n trained as an interior designer at the Escuela Internacional de Dise\u00f1adores Interioristas y Arte de Catalunya (DIAC-EIADE), graduating in 1989. Even before completing her studies, she was already at work on projects at Estudio DSAN in Barcelona, alongside Estrella Salietti and M\u00aa Jos\u00e9 Ankli. That first stage was followed by more than two decades \u2014 from 1989 to 2011 \u2014 at AM Asociados, developing renovation, full-scope residential, retail, and hospitality projects: the years in which she built much of the judgment that defines her work today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2012 she founded her own studio in Sant Cugat del Vall\u00e8s, A! Emotional living & work. There she develops residential and professional projects with a single aim: that functionality and beauty coexist without hierarchy, and that every element of a space speak to the whole. The result is interiors built with noble materials, soft palettes, and sustained attention to texture, conceived to endure beyond the moment’s trends. Her portfolio includes residential renovations in the Barcelona neighborhoods of Sagrada Fam\u00edlia, Tres Torres, and Gran Via, and commercial spaces such as the Marc Cain stores and the headquarters of COGAC (Col\u00b7legi Oficial de Gestors Administratius de Catalunya).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2014 she founded estudioDOM together with Elisabet Sanuy and Varvara Shabardina, partners with whom she brings more than thirty years of combined experience. The studio develops comprehensive residential interior design projects, from concept through to turnkey delivery, with a client list that includes international owners of homes in Barcelona and the Costa Brava.<\/p>\n\n\n

The method, in both studios, is the same: listen before proposing. Every project begins with a dialogue with the client, in which needs, personalities, and ways of living or working are translated into concrete spatial solutions, supported by a multidisciplinary team \u2014 interior designers, architects, construction specialists \u2014 that carries the process through from start to finish. Us\u00f3n sums up this working ethic in three words: honesty, rigor, and innovation.<\/p>\n\n

\n

A! Emotional living&work
<\/strong>Carrer de Francesc Moragas, 1
08172 Sant Cugat del Vall\u00e8s (Barcelona)
+34 619 102 965
araceli@aemotional.com
www.aemotional.com<\/a>
@aemotionalivingandwork<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Solius (Girona), a former casa de masovers recovers the compactness, the stone walls, and the direct relationship with the outdoors that defined Empord\u00e0’s vernacular architecture for centuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","footnotes":"","_ppma_block_editor_authors":""},"categories":[578],"tags":[2453,2192,1397],"ppma_author":[249],"class_list":["post-70026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interior-design","tag-a-emotional-livingwork","tag-houses-in-girona","tag-residential-interior-design"],"authors":[{"term_id":249,"user_id":1,"is_guest":0,"slug":"amoratinos","display_name":"Ex\u00e1gono","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/95418ef5af1f1a520d5386cfe82ba253c88665f94a4343ec69a36d8df034ab4b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","first_name":"","last_name":"","user_url":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70026"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70046,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70026\/revisions\/70046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70026"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=70026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}