ensamble studio: the truffle

‘la trufa’ image © ensamble studio

why are we using soil as a shoring component and not a haystack?

spanish studio ensamble studio, run by architect antón garcía-abril, with collaborators ricardo sanz and javier cuesta, have created ‘la trufa’ (the truffle), a small holiday house in costa de morte, in the north of spain. ‘la trufa / the truffle’ has been featured widely. however, yesterday, ensamble studio has sent us the final version of the video documentation showing the construction process of the project, along with interior views. enjoy!

still from video courtesy of ensamble studio

bedroom view still from video courtesy of ensamble studio

a spatial volume varied by the method of stacking still from video courtesy of ensamble studio

fireplace still from video courtesy of ensamble studio

exterior view image © ensamble studio

here is how the architects describe their work: the truffle is a piece of nature built with earth, full of air. a space within a stone that sits on the ground and blends in with the territory. it camouflages, by emulating the processes of mineral formation in its structure, and integrates with the natural environment, complying with its laws.

we made a hole in the ground, piling up on its perimeter, the topsoil removed, and we obtained a retaining dike without mechanical consistency. then, we materialized the air building a volume with hay bales and flooded the space between the earth and the built air to solidify it. the poured mass concrete wrapped the air and protected itself with the ground. time passed and we removed the earth, discovering an amorphous mass.

image © ensamble studio

ensamble studio made a few cuts using quarry machinery to explore its core and discover the mass built within the hay, now compressed by the hydrostatic pressure exerted by concrete on the flimsy vegetable structure. in order to ’empty out’ the hay-filled interior, paulina the calf arrived, enjoying the 50m3 of the ‘finest food’, in which she was nourished for a year until she left her habitat, already as an adult and weighing 300 kilos. she ate through the inerior volume in which space, for the first time was reveaed, restoring the architectural condition of the truffle, after having been a shelter for the animal and a vegetable mass for an extended period of time.