A bright and modern house in the woods is the ultimate chill-out zone on the island
Anna Bisazza – Sun 3 Sep 2023
Right at the centre of Ibiza, between Santa Gertrudis and San Rafael, a newly renovated house sits quietly under swaying forest trees. It’s not the typical kind of home in this area – and that was exactly what the owner, interior designer Rodrigo Izquierdo, was looking for.
Originally from Barcelona, and a resident of Milan in Italy for nearly two decades, he was the interior design creative supervisor for architect and designer Patricia Urquiola before going it alone and opening his own design studio in 2016.“Normally you would expect a house on an island to be close to the sea. Here you are surrounded by trees and there’s an amazing light,” says Rodrigo, whose love affair with the Balearic island has developed over many years, as he has spent time here in the company of friends or professionally. When the moment came for Rodrigo and his partner to invest in a property, they saw this unique opportunity and took the leap.
At first glance the extent of the renovation is not that obvious. The exterior look and the original internal walls remained unchanged, but the insulation, plumbing and electrics were all renewed. It was only when the interior was completely undressed that they understood what their criteria for the project would be. “We let the house tell us what had to be done. It was basically a house from the 1980s so it shouldn’t have the traditional Ibicencan rustic farmhouse style. We also wanted to approach the project with the same rationalism of the architects from the 1950s and 60s, who thought the most important element had to be function.”
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