{"id":74402,"date":"2026-10-20T09:09:33","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T09:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/casa-vereda-laura-ortin-traduce-la-memoria-de-la-huerta-de-murcia-en-esta-sucesion-de-bovedas\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T10:36:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T10:36:03","slug":"casa-vereda-laura-ortin-translates-the-memory-of-the-murcia-huerta-into-this-succession-of-vaults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/casa-vereda-laura-ortin-translates-the-memory-of-the-murcia-huerta-into-this-succession-of-vaults\/","title":{"rendered":"Casa Vereda: Laura Ort\u00edn translates the memory of the Murcia huerta into this succession of vaults"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Ramos sits in the Vega del Segura, eight kilometres north-east of the city of Murcia, where the irrigated plain begins to climb the foothills of Mount Miravete. It is a village that breathes the scent of the huerta, with hillsides where the terraces of old crops can still be made out, witnesses to the agricultural prosperity that sustained the area for generations. In the nearby mountain landscape, the barely visible remains of Tabala castle recall the line of fortresses that guarded the south of the Murcia huerta in medieval times.<\/p>\n\n\n

Surrounded by citrus orchards, the village lies within a working agricultural landscape, traced by irrigation channels, terraces and furrows, where everything built is born of necessity: the barraca, the hermitage and also the sheds of the fruit and vegetable factories where the harvest of the vega was prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n

Among these orchards, the architect Laura Ort\u00edn, head of\u00a0L\u2019Aura Ort\u00edn Architecture for Happiness<\/a>, has designed Casa Vereda, a single-family house that she conceived to the poetic rhythm of a few lines by Antonio Machado: \u201cI dreamt that you were leading me \/ along a white path, \/ through the green fields, \/ towards the blue of the sierras\u201d. The house translates the colours of the poem into matter: the white of its fa\u00e7ades, the green of the lemon trees and of its shutters, the blue of the sierra that closes the horizon.<\/p>\n\n

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The main fa\u00e7ade links together six vaults of different heights. The tallest covers the living area.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The lemon trees of the vega surround the house, whose profile of vaults rises above the greenery.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Sprayed cork covers wall and roof with a single granular texture, finished with a slender edge along the vaults.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

The silhouette of the Murcia huerta<\/h2>\n\n\n

Seen from the orchards, Casa Vereda is recognisable by its profile, a sequence of arches of varying height that runs along the fa\u00e7ade like an undulating line against the sky. Each arch corresponds to a vault, higher over the living area and lower over the bedrooms, and this profile hints from outside at the interior layout. The silhouette recalls the curved roofs of the agricultural sheds of the vega, the everyday architecture that Ort\u00edn studies as a source of knowledge. \u201cUnderstanding what already exists can help us build a contemporary architecture that is more aware of, and more connected to, its surroundings\u201d, the architect maintains.<\/p>\n\n\n

The house aspires to go unnoticed. Its mimicry poses a deliberate question to anyone who looks at it (has it always been there?), and the continuous coating of fa\u00e7ade and roof, sand-coloured and granular in texture, prepares the surface to acquire its own patina and to age alongside its surroundings. In front of the main fa\u00e7ade stretches a terrace of handmade terracotta, where the French windows and their green shutters set a regular rhythm beneath the shifting line of the vaults.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Beneath the tallest vault, the modular sofas in a tile-red tone echo the colour of the brick.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The double-sided fireplace separates dining room and living room without interrupting the continuity of the space.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Timbrel vaults of handmade brick<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The curved roofs have been built in the traditional manner, as timbrel vaults of handmade brick. The technique, long established in eastern Spain, builds the vault from thin bricks laid with fast-setting plaster, with no need for formwork. Inside, the brick is left exposed, and its range of orange, ochre and terracotta tones, different in every piece, becomes the main argument of the space. The bond changes from one room to the next and traces different patterns across the curve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each space receives the height and width its use requires. The bedrooms are covered by lower vaults, which gather the atmosphere and make them easier to heat and cool, while the living area, where activity is greater and more people share the space, unfolds beneath the tallest vaults. Living room, dining room and kitchen follow one another in a single continuous space, at the centre of which a free-standing double-sided fireplace raises its black flue up to the crown. Wherever two vaults meet, a white band marks the joint and makes the structure legible, including in the bathroom, where pearl-grey ceramic tiles line the walls up to the springing of the curve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sun as fuel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLight is our ally. The sun, our fuel\u201d, says Ort\u00edn. Bioclimatic architecture has been part of the architect\u2019s method from the very first sketch. Orientation, shade, ventilation and the relationship with the outdoors shape the plan as much as the programme does. The rooms open onto the terrace through large French windows, and light travels through the house from one end to the other.<\/p>\n\n\n

The interior floor is terrazzo, and its role goes beyond that of a finish. In winter, the sun entering through the openings warms the floor, whose high thermal mass retains the heat for hours. In summer, with the shutters closed, the same floor stays cool. The envelope completes the system. Fa\u00e7ade and roof are coated in sprayed cork, with a grain size that improves thermal insulation and hygrothermal performance, and that gives the whole volume a material continuity in which wall and vault share the same skin.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The bedrooms are covered by lower vaults, which gather the atmosphere and make them easier to heat and cool.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Truth and beauty in matter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ort\u00edn asks matter for constructive coherence and a touch of mystery, and sums it up in two words: \u201ctruth and beauty\u201d. The wood provides the unexpected note. Doors, wardrobes and kitchen are made of natural pine lacquered in a cherry tone, a deep red that sits alongside the pink of the brick and the white of the walls. The furniture, by contrast, keeps the pale pine. The tables, benches, beds and sideboards by Lufe, with simple lines and exposed joints, bring a domestic, handcrafted scale to the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outdoors and on the window sills, handmade terracotta offers an earthy footfall and a rural character that links to the tradition of the huerta. The shutters, designed by the studio, are a contemporary reinterpretation of the Mediterranean Mallorcan louvred shutter. Made of aluminium lacquered in leaf green and pared back to the essentials, they serve three purposes at once: security, solar protection and a bond with a collective memory that every neighbour in the huerta recognises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A house for slow living<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The interior extends the palette of the architecture. Modular boucl\u00e9 sofas in a tile-red tone, the paper lamp by Mia Pulpa above the dining table, the ceramics by Inma Peroli, the pieces by Mar\u00edn Guevara and the textiles by Gredecor compose spaces open to the outdoors, where the brick of the vaults is ornament enough. In the children\u2019s bedroom, a pine trundle bed and a small desk facing the window occupy an elongated room beneath a low vault, at a child\u2019s scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The architecture gives centre stage to the life it shelters and offers itself as a setting from which to enjoy what is essential. Like Machado\u2019s white path, the house is a path rather than a destination, a clear line among the lemon trees from which to look out over the green fields and, in the distance, the blue of the sierras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Materials and furniture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Roofs<\/strong>: timbrel vault of handmade brick. Fa\u00e7ade and roof coating<\/strong>: sprayed cork. Interior flooring<\/strong>: terrazzo. Exterior flooring and window sills<\/strong>: handmade terracotta. Interior joinery and kitchen<\/strong>: natural pine lacquered in a cherry tone. Shutters<\/strong>: aluminium lacquered in leaf green, designed by L\u2019Aura Ort\u00edn Architecture for Happiness. Wooden furniture<\/strong>: Lufe. Fireplace<\/strong>: Llofr\u00edo. Dining room lamp<\/strong>: Mia Pulpa. Textiles<\/strong>: Gredecor. Ceramics<\/strong>: Inma Peroli. Artworks<\/strong>: Mar\u00edn Guevara. Styling<\/strong>: Ic\u00f3nica 38 and Alexandra C\u00e1novas del Rey.<\/p>\n\n\n

Project<\/strong>: Casa Vereda.
Location<\/strong>: Los Ramos. Murcia.
Programme<\/strong>: New-build single-family house.
Built area<\/strong>: 240 m\u00b2.
Completed<\/strong>: 2026.
Architecture<\/strong>:\u00a0L\u2019Aura Ort\u00edn Architecture for Happiness<\/a>.
Team<\/strong>: Laura Ort\u00edn, lead architect. Tatiana Poggi, architect, and Cintia Collado, building engineer.
Building engineer<\/strong>: Antonio Ros.\u00a0Otarin Estudio<\/a>.
Structural engineering<\/strong>: CYD.
Contractor<\/strong>: Coprosaro.
Photography<\/strong>:\u00a0David Frutos<\/a>.
Video<\/strong>:\u00a0Sandwich Studio<\/a>.
Art direction<\/strong>:\u00a0Altoplano<\/a>.
Source<\/strong>: L\u2019Aura Ort\u00edn Architecture for Happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Laura Ort\u00edn<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From Murcia, where she founded her studio in 2011, Laura Ort\u00edn has spent two decades shaping her own way of understanding architecture. She graduated from the Escuela T\u00e9cnica Superior de Arquitectura de Valencia in 2006, after specialising in Building at the \u00c9cole d\u2019Architecture ISAI in Brussels, and between 2012 and 2014 she completed her doctoral studies at the Universidad Polit\u00e9cnica de Madrid. She spent her early years of practice at the Ad-Hoc Murcia studio, where she took part in competitions and in public and private commissions across every phase of the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A succession of commissions gradually shaped a personal line of research that she now gathers under the claim \u201carchitecture for happiness\u201d: designing from the way people perceive spaces, in order to bring them wellbeing and identity. She is interested in the relationship between people and their living environment, which she calls the etho-ecological dimension, and from it emerge spaces that are healthy, beautiful and emotionally evocative. The studio works on new builds, rehabilitation, renovation and furniture design with the same values at any scale: respect, memory, welcome, honesty and economy. Ort\u00edn also champions the social capacity of architectural design, and for more than a decade she ran LOdise\u00f1aLO in parallel, a project conceived as a creative miscellany where she shared obsessions, intentions and projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her way of organising the profession is equally distinctive. Instead of the classic studio model, she has woven a stable network of collaborations, designed so that professional practice can remain compatible with life.<\/p>\n\n\n

Teaching holds a central place in her career. She teaches on the Master\u2019s Degree in Neuroarchitecture at the University of Alicante, the Master\u2019s in Interior Design at Instituto 42 in Murcia and the Interior Design Experience programme in Madrid. She has sat on final-degree project juries and has lectured at universities and schools in Zaragoza, Alicante, Madrid and Cartagena. She has authored research articles in Innovaci\u00f3n e Investigaci\u00f3n en Arquitectura y Territorio<\/em>, published by the University of Alicante, and in Documentos Acad\u00e9micos de Arquitectura<\/em>, from the Polit\u00e9cnica de Bolivia, and the studio\u2019s work has appeared in international magazines such as I-Plus Magazine<\/em>, L\u2019Architecture d\u2019Aujourd\u2019hui<\/em> and FIO<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n

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L\u2019Aura Ort\u00edn Architecture<\/strong>
for Happiness<\/strong>
Plaza Cetina, 6
30001 Murcia
+34 616 105 832
hola@lauraortin.com
lauraortin.com<\/a>
@lauraortinarquitectura<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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

A house the architect designed to the poetic rhythm of a few lines by Antonio Machado: \u201cI dreamt that you were leading me \/ along a white path, \/ through the green fields, \/ towards the blue of the sierras\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","footnotes":"","_ppma_block_editor_authors":"{\"authors\":[296],\"author_categories\":{\"296\":\"1\"},\"fallback_author_user\":\"1\",\"ppma_author_box_select\":\"\",\"selected_authors\":[{\"id\":296,\"display_name\":\"Andr\u00e9s Moratinos\",\"is_guest\":1,\"category_id\":\"1\"}]}"},"categories":[624],"tags":[2507,2506,1989],"ppma_author":[296],"class_list":["post-74402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-architecture","tag-houses-in-murcia","tag-laura-ortin","tag-residential-architecture-en"],"authors":[{"term_id":296,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"andres-moratinos","display_name":"Andr\u00e9s Moratinos","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?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\/74402","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=74402"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74414,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74402\/revisions\/74414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74402"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=74402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}