Architect Alejandro Muñoz, from 3tudio, opened his studio in Lanzarote 20 years ago. Originally from Tenerife, he has been based on the island for two decades, where he dedicates himself to both rehabilitating traditional homes and creating others with more modern designs. In the midst of an unprecedented housing crisis, his studio sees an increase in demand from clients, but also how construction slows down due to the lack of labor. This multifaceted reality brings piece-by-piece construction systems to the island, which have been used in Europe for decades.
When approaching a home rehabilitation, his perspective is "completely different" than when facing a new build. "In a new home, you are guided by the place, the client, the needs, where the wind comes from or where the sun rises and what the client's lifestyle is." However, "in a traditional one, the intention is different, to try to give life to that architecture that is about to disappear."
In a context of housing emergency, with rental and sale prices more expensive than ever before in Lanzarote and with problems responding to the demand in construction, this studio tries to reduce waiting times through industrialized construction systems, which are essentially homes made of different materials that are created in factories outside the island, transported in containers and assembled here.
"Right now there are quite a few difficulties in getting a builder because there is no labor on the island," explains Muñoz, who indicates that construction companies are very limited and are working with waits of up to a year to start executing the homes.
To try to shorten deadlines, his studio already works with companies from several European countries that manufacture the pieces in their workshops and then send them to the island. "The structural part that in a normal construction would take three months or so, is done in five days here on the island," he adds.
"The pieces arrive in the containers in the opposite direction to how it is being assembled, it is taken out like a puzzle and assembled," he explains. This assembly is done with specialized labor that comes from outside the island, so "it is a way to avoid the big problem" that the island is experiencing.
In his case, they market up to five different systems, which vary by materials and types of composition, such as steel and wood, which allow you to design a house "to the taste" of the client and not standardized homes. "They are not ready-made houses, you decide how you want it and you can adapt it to the place, make it accessible," adds Alejandro Muñoz. For him, this type of housing is "a way to democratize the design of luxury architecture."
These systems are usually faster to build and somewhat cheaper than traditional ones, but they are governed by the same urban planning laws as a block house. "There are even many aspects where traditional construction is a bit on tiptoe or passes the filters grazing and these systems comply far above the minimum parameters established by the standard, both in sustainability and energy saving, insulation, thermal quality, in air renewal they are far superior to traditional construction," he defends.
In this sense, he indicates that although "it is shocking when someone sees the construction, that the wood is seen, that is not the final finish." This architect explains that when an industrialized house is finished, its finish is indistinguishable from other houses. "The finishes, the colors, the composition are respected," he adds.
Rehabilitation of historic homes, the example of the Carrasco house
"Whoever has a traditional home has a treasure, because they have an asset that cannot be reproduced," defends Alejandro Muñoz, who invites you to see the restrictions of heritage protection as "an advantage, a way of knowing that they guide us towards a place, but taking advantage of the fact that everything has different forms of reading and certain flexibility."
Among the works he has in hand, the Tenerife native is working on the rehabilitation of the historic Carrasco house in San Bartolomé, which will be the new headquarters of Bodegas Los Bermejos. This house, which measures around 2,000 square meters, is located at the entrance of La Geria.
"It is a project of several years, since they are very delicate works where everything is custom-made. They are very artisanal," indicates Muñoz on the other side of the phone. For example, in this rehabilitation they are making exact reproductions of the original carpentry of the house. "The carpenter practically lives there, taking measurements, saving the materials that are still in good condition to replace pieces or the parts that are not," he adds.
In the rehabilitation of Lanzarote homes, the architect defends the idea of "giving life back" to the construction. "Investigate, see what it was like, reproduce it, not only physically." Therefore, he assures that "it is very important to use traditional techniques and original materials."
At this point, he points out the importance of advocating for "constructive sincerity", so that "it is not only an aesthetic or compositional issue, that it looks beautiful, but that there is also a constructive sincerity, that it is honest, that it is really built and made as it was conceived at the time."
For this studio, the important thing is not that "it remains only as that rehabilitation in an aesthetic question, but that in the end it also transmits that it is an act of responsibility and of connection with the past." In addition to "bringing to the present the memory and the result of centuries of adaptation to a territory that was extreme. We do not want to take that architecture and decorate it as if it were a postcard, but to return it with its materials, its proportions, with all its truth."
Modern architecture versus copying the traditional
Muñoz was always linked to Lanzarote and the work of Manrique. "César Manrique saved Lanzarote, which was abandoned, and gave it a new way of looking at itself," he points out during an interview with La Voz about the artist's work on the island.
The inspiration of Manrique and the works of the Portuguese architect Alejandro Siza, with designs "not very ostentatious or complicated" and following a more minimalist constructive art, have guided the essence of his current work in Lanzarote. Regarding his new work, his studio is committed to the construction of more modern works on the island, prefers to bet on constructions that adapt to current needs. "The past, traditional architecture, also guides you, but each era needs its architecture," he continues. In this sense, he is against imitating traditional architecture because he understands that it is "taking away value" from these constructions.
In this line, his philosophy is "never to replicate the old, but to learn from it, extract its essence, its way of dialoguing with the climate, with the light and the landscape." For this architect "the most attractive" of Manrique's work "is that he dared to imagine how it could evolve, how it could become." "What I liked the most is that he did not imitate the tradition, but reinterpreted it, with a new language, with new ideas and knew how to adapt it to the island," he points out.
