Objet Trouvé: Creating A Harmonious Relationship Between The Built Environment And The Natural Landscape Of Tabarca Island, Spain | Masters Design Project

Site Context

The project site is located on Tabarca Island, off Spain’s southeastern coast near Alicante. Recognized for its historical significance, the island boasts a distinctive blend of rugged flat coastlines, Mediterranean vegetation, and environmentally protected waters. Its architectural heritage includes traditional stone buildings, reflecting its past as a fishing village and a military outpost, marked by the presence of the Torre de San José.

The project envisions a series of small, independent structures dispersed across the island’s uninhabited areas, arranged in a loose, circular configuration. These volumes are designed for diverse functions, including retreat spaces, cultural hubs, a hotel, pools, a restaurant, and a meditative area. The design maintains a strong connection to the island’s natural terrain while ensuring ecological preservation. Inspired by the organic, non-grid layout of Parc de la Villette, the project seeks to establish a fluid and harmonious relationship between the built environment and the surrounding landscape.

Design Process

The design process started with the development of a personal architectural theory, emphasizing the interplay between space, nature, and human experience. AI tools like MidJourney were used to generate visual concepts, shaping the spatial layout and program while ensuring a seamless integration of contemporary design with the island’s historical and ecological context. 

These initial ideas were then translated into physical form through model-making, allowing for material exploration and a deeper understanding of scale, texture, and spatial relationships. By combining digital sketches, physical models, and material experimentation in an iterative process, the design was refined to achieve harmony with the island’s natural landscape.

Final Outcome

The Tabarca project consists of small, independent structures dispersed across the island’s uninhabited areas, forming a pathway around the Torre de San José. The design incorporates cast-in-soil architecture, ensuring each volume integrates seamlessly with the landscape while emphasizing environmental sensitivity, natural light, and energy efficiency. Two primary axes, one extending north and the other south, organize these alignments, connecting scattered elements in the north with key reference points in the south. Functions related to water, like pools, are positioned near the northern beach access, while the workshop is strategically placed near the waste area to facilitate recycling and reuse processes. Residential spaces and restaurants are oriented southward, offering uninterrupted views of La Tabarca and the horizon. Meanwhile, a designated space for silence faces away from the populated areas, providing a secluded retreat for tranquility.

The project integrates architecture with the island’s natural topography, stacking thermal baths to create a stepped sequence that follows the land’s contours. Adolf Loos’ Raumplan concept is reimagined in the steam room, where a steam bath at the base and a steam room above use rising vapor to generate a hammam-like atmosphere, enhanced by natural light from an upper window. The water area features three baths—hot, medium, and cold—arranged across varying levels that follow the natural slope. Adjacent, the changing room (180 m²) is divided equally for men and women, with showers, toilets, and changing areas in a roofless, windowless structure that admits natural light.

The 250 m² workshop, arranged over three levels, includes a ground-floor general workspace, a skylit drawing room above, and a rooftop garden with clay-drying space—ideal for sketching the island’s sparse vegetation and birdlife. The 448 m² dormitory space, influenced by Le Corbusier’s La Tourette, contains ten single rooms with shared facilities and ten en suite double rooms, all oriented toward the sea for uninterrupted ocean views. The 225 m² dining room transforms structural elements into design features, using suspended cables to support both walls and furniture, creating a lively and engaging dining experience. Meanwhile, the 81 m² fitness space incorporates a perforated climbing wall whose structural cables double as exercise bars.

Set apart from the main complex, the 108 m² silence space offers two distinct zones: one for individual contemplation, with horizon-facing seats and a central bookcase, and one for collective stillness, adaptable for group activities. Together, these spaces form a cohesive retreat where architectural form supports varied experiences of rest, reflection, and renewal.

Conclusion: Overall, the project merges architecture, history, and nature, creating a seamless dialogue with the island’s landscape. Through site-specific design and ecological sensitivity, it offers spaces for retreat, reflection, and cultural engagement while preserving Tabarca’s unique identity.

[This Academic Project has been published with text and images submitted by the student]