House “Las fuentes”

This is an existing building in the old part of the town of Toledo, used as a dwelling, where Islamic baths were discovered a few years ago.

The project was conditional in its form and pre-existing structure as well as its location in the old town of Toledo.

The Toledo Consortium established an agreement with the owner to refurbish the house and allow for a “cultural museum” visit to the ground floor.

The intervention was intended to allow the investigation and visit of the archaeological remains and to rehabilitate the house in accordance to the old typology of the “courtyard house”.

The proposal was to implement a housing prototype that could serve as a model of exemplary intervention in the fusion of an existing traditional typology with the current criteria and bioclimatic systems.

The project preserves the vaults, the ground floor cistern and the medieval pavements, as well as the south façade of the house and some existing construction elements.

On the ground floor there is a museum-like performance where the elements found and cleaned up can be exhibited, with controlled lighting, symbolically recovering the old function of the cistern and baths.

As for the integral refurbishment of the dwelling, the project recovers the typology of the “courtyard house”, a typical Toledo tradition, both at a functional and bioclimatic level. Furthermore, the traditional bioclimatic operation is complemented by contemporary technologies, with the aim of achieving the greatest comfort and energy efficiency possible. The project aspects, construction systems, installations, home automation and renewable energy production were to be a replicable model in the old part of the city.