Deep, narrow plots create floor plans where the middle rooms receive little to no natural light. A site that is 6 meters wide and 33 meters deep puts the center of the house roughly 10 to 15 meters from either end. Side windows cannot reach that far, and the front and rear facades provide light only to the rooms at the edges. Residential designers working on such sites have developed a reliable solution: carve out a central portion of the floor plate and let light enter from above. The passive house architecture approach to daylighting emphasizes strategic opening placement and glazing performance, but on a narrow urban plot the geometry of the void matters as much as the window specification. The Ribera House in Valencia, by Carles Faus Arquitectura, demonstrates how a central light court organized around two large skylights can transform a 6-meter-wide plot into a bright, three-story home.
Working with the Outskirts Plot Configuration
The Ribera House site sits on the outskirts of Valencia, a new development area where streets and plots follow consistent organizational criteria. The plot measures 6 meters wide and 33 meters long, but the house occupies only the first 20 meters. This leaves the rear 13 meters as a private garden, which becomes the second source of light and air for the ground floor living spaces. The same approach to organizing a compact site into defined built and open zones appears in the modern barnhouse vision for suburban infill, though the Ribera plot is significantly narrower.
Plot Dimensions and Buildable Area
With a total plot area of 198 square meters (6 by 33 meters) and the building occupying the front 20 meters, the footprint of the house is approximately 120 square meters. Spread across three floors, this yields 320.55 square meters of built surface. The rear garden of roughly 78 square meters provides outdoor space and a light source for the ground floor.
| Parameter | Value | Percentage of Plot |
|---|---|---|
| Plot width | 6 meters | 100 percent |
| Plot depth | 33 meters | 100 percent |
| Building footprint depth | 20 meters | 61 percent |
| Garden depth | 13 meters | 39 percent |
| Total built surface (3 floors) | 320.55 sqm | NA |
| Garden area | 78 sqm | 39 percent |
Why Only 20 Meters of Buildable Depth
Local setback requirements and the desire for a usable garden dictated the 20-meter building depth. Building the full 33 meters would have eliminated the garden, forcing all three floors to rely entirely on the central void for light. The rear garden provides a second source of daylight and an outdoor amenity that increases the property value and livability of the ground floor.
The Central Emptying Strategy for Light Distribution
The central feature of the Ribera House is what the architect calls an emptying: a void carved through the middle of the three-story volume. Two large skylights at the top of this void project natural light downward. The architect states that the goal is to provide the most natural lighting to all rooms and circulation paths, using overhead lighting at all times to achieve this end.
The emptying serves three functions simultaneously:
- It admits overhead light to the core of the house, which side windows cannot reach
- It creates vertical visual connections between floors, making the interior feel larger
- It enables stack-effect ventilation when the skylights are opened
Designing the Void Dimensions
For a 6-meter-wide house, the void typically spans 2.5 to 3 meters in width, leaving 1.5 to 1.75 meters on each side for rooms and corridors. The length of the void depends on the floor plan organization. In the Ribera House, the emptying is positioned so that it lights both the circulation path and the adjacent living spaces. The proportions are calibrated to admit enough light for the deepest rooms while keeping the floor area loss below 15 percent of the total.
Void Placement and Circulation
The staircase and hallways cluster around the void, ensuring that all movement through the house happens in naturally lit space. This is a critical design decision because corridor spaces in deep floor plans are the areas most likely to feel dark and cramped. By wrapping circulation around the void, the Ribera House eliminates the need for artificial lighting during daytime hours.
Dual Skylight Configuration for Overhead Illumination
Two large skylights sit at the top of the void, positioned to capture direct sunlight at different times of day. One skylight may face south for maximum midday light, while the other faces a different orientation to extend the period of usable daylight into the morning and afternoon. The dual-skylight strategy also provides redundancy: if one skylight is shaded by an adjacent building or tree, the other still delivers light to the interior.
Skylight performance depends on several factors that differ from vertical window performance:
- Overhead glazing admits 2 to 3 times more light per square meter than vertical glazing
- Light from skylights penetrates deeper into the floor plate
- Skylights on flat roofs require careful flashing and waterproofing detailing
- Condensation management is critical in humid climates
- Motorized or operable skylights add ventilation benefits
Comparing Skylight Types for Residential Projects
The window selection for the farmhouse project demonstrates how different glazing products serve different functions within the same house. For the Ribera House, skylights are the primary light source for the void, so their performance specifications must prioritize light transmission and thermal insulation.
The houses in the Carles Faus portfolio use Velux skylights (listed as Lucernarios in the Ferragud project), which offer laminated safety glass, integrated blinds, and motorized operation. The U-value of a modern double-glazed skylight ranges from 1.0 to 1.4 W/sqmK, compared to 2.5 to 3.0 for single glazing. Solar heat gain coefficient should be 0.3 to 0.5 for Mediterranean climates to balance daylight admission with overheating control.
Black and White as a Spatial Material Palette
The Ribera House uses two colors with clear roles. Black appears on the interior staircase: natural Marquina marble for the treads and black lacquered steel sheet for the railing. White dominates the exterior, with porcelain tile at the base and white mortar on the upper facade. The showcase homes that inspire real-world design often use monochrome palettes to simplify the visual field, but the Ribera House does something more specific. By putting black in the interior stair and white on the exterior facade, the design inverts expectations. The heavy dark material lives inside, while the light reflective material faces the street.
Black Marquina Marble for the Staircase
Marquina marble is a natural black stone with white veining quarried in the Basque Country of Spain. Its polished finish creates a reflective surface that catches light from the overhead skylights. The decision to use natural stone rather than a manufactured alternative adds weight and permanence to the stair core. The railing in black lacquered steel sheet continues the dark material language without competing with the marble.
White Mortar and Porcelain on the Exterior
The facade base uses a large-format porcelain tile covered with gray veining, providing a durable wainscot that resists splash-back from the street and weathering at ground level. Above the base, white mortar coats the remaining surface. The transition between the gray-veined base and the white upper facade creates a horizontal datum that anchors the building visually. White exterior surfaces in Mediterranean climates reflect 70 to 85 percent of solar radiation, keeping wall surface temperatures 10 to 15 degrees Celsius lower than dark finishes on the same elevation.
Ground Floor Planning Turned Toward the Garden
The architect projected the house looking inwards. The day area runs along the ground floor as one large open space turned toward the rear garden. The kitchen, dining, and living areas occupy a continuous volume that opens to the garden through large glazed doors. This inward orientation creates privacy from the street while maximizing the connection to the private outdoor space.
The open plan on the ground floor serves a dual purpose. It allows the rear garden light to reach deeper into the house, supplementing the overhead light from the void. It also creates the flexible living area that families in Mediterranean climates use for extended summer dining, entertaining, and daily life that flows between indoors and outdoors.
Floor plans that turn living spaces toward a rear garden require careful treatment of the street facade. The Ribera House uses a more closed front elevation with controlled openings that provide privacy while maintaining street presence. The contrast between the open rear and the closed front is deliberate and creates a clear hierarchy of public and private space within the same floor plate. The passive house design and construction lessons from similar projects show that this split orientation also supports passive solar strategies: the glazed rear collects winter sun while the insulated front facade limits heat loss to the street.
The passive house remodeling lessons from comparable renovation projects confirm that a building turned inward toward a private garden performs better thermally because the occupied side faces a moderated microclimate rather than the exposed street. The garden buffers temperature swings, and the deep soil supports rainwater infiltration that reduces runoff from the built portion of the plot.