How do you protect and honor your grandparents’ home, while also updating it for the way we live now? That was the question that Marina Hernández and Rafael Calero, who are a couple both in life and professionally (as the founders of Che.studio), asked themselves.
“When we started this project, we knew we had a responsibility to the place and to its history. Marina’s grandparents built it with their own hands, and it holds cherished memories for the whole family. We treated it with enormous respect. That deep connection transforms every corner of it into a reflection of our history. The challenge of bringing this space to life was not easy, but at the same time, we felt that we were taking on the role of guardians of a family legacy that we wanted to continue,” explain the architects.
The most important goals were to maintain the original essence of the property and ensure that the surrounding landscape remained intact. “The biggest challenge was to design with a respect for what already existed, both the natural elements and manmade ones,” says Hernández. This means the holm oaks, the topography, and the granite, as well as the buildings constructed by my grandparents. “They have a strong sentimental value for us. From the beginning, we knew that we wanted to intervene as little as possible,” she continues.
