Brunet Arquitectes celebrates three decades of architecture from Mallorca. A journey that began in Manacor and has been shaped by landscape, homes, renovations, public facilities and a way of understanding the profession in which people, place and environmental responsibility are always part of the project.
Some evenings are made for celebrating, while others, almost unintentionally, manage to sum up an entire story. The 30th anniversary of Brunet Arquitectes was one of them. Friends, clients, collaborators and suppliers gathered at Cafè T’estim in Manacor to share a toast, memories and conversations that continued late into the evening beneath the courtyard. Thirty years could be read there not as a number, but as a sum of people, projects, decisions and trust.
The venue was no coincidence either. Cafè T’estim is part of Estel de Llevant, one of the projects the studio has had the opportunity to be involved in, and a work that illustrates something essential about the way Brunet Arquitectes approaches architecture: architecture does not end with the form of a building. It can organise, protect, support and contribute to the wellbeing of those who use it. Celebrating three decades there was, in a way, a return to the deeper meaning of the profession.
A story that began in Manacor
Brunet Arquitectes’ journey began in Manacor thirty years ago, far removed from the idea of an architecture studio understood simply as a firm and much closer to a daily practice: observing, drawing, building, making mistakes, learning and starting again. Over time came new people, new scales and increasingly diverse commissions. The studio grew, while maintaining something that can still be recognised in its work: the desire to understand each project through the place in which it will exist.
That way of looking begins with simple questions. Where does the sun rise? Where does the wind come from? What was here before? Which part of the land should be preserved? What will be seen from a window? How will a stone age? How will people move through a house? In Mallorca, these questions are particularly important. The light is generous, but also intense; the landscape invites us to open up to the outdoors, while demanding shade, orientation and protection; and the island’s building heritage is present in marès stone, courtyards, walls, vegetation and traditional ways of responding to the climate.
Contemporary architecture does not need to imitate the past in order to belong to a place. It can speak a contemporary language while recognising what was already there. This balance between tradition, landscape and a Mediterranean way of life appears in different forms throughout much of the studio’s work.
From rural landscapes to the city
In projects such as Pleta de Son ViolÃ, the house approaches the landscape without attempting to compete with it. The volumes, terraces, swimming pool, stone and garden form a whole in which interior and exterior are understood as parts of the same experience. It is not simply about building in the countryside, but about accepting that any intervention alters a landscape that was there long before the building.
In urban projects, the challenge changes. In a house between party walls, a renovation or an apartment close to the sea, architecture must find opportunities within very specific constraints. Light, courtyards, views, cross-ventilation and the recovery of outdoor spaces can completely transform the way a house is inhabited. Santa Catalina is a good example of this ability to work with what already exists and find a new relationship between interior life, the street, the courtyard and the roof terrace.
Over these three decades, Brunet Arquitectes has also worked on public facilities, renovations, collective housing and projects where the public dimension of architecture takes on particular importance. They are works of different scales and programmes, but they share the same question: how can a space respond better to the people and context around it?
An environmental conviction ahead of its time
There is also a line of work that has become increasingly important over the years and is now inseparable from the studio’s identity: its commitment to energy efficiency and environmental impact. Long before sustainability became a common argument in the sector, Brunet Arquitectes began working decisively with passive strategies, bioclimatic architecture and approaches aimed at reducing the energy demand of buildings.
This journey has positioned the studio among the pioneers in the introduction and development of Passivhaus homes in Mallorca. Not as a label added to a project, but as a way of designing that requires orientation, insulation, airtightness, the elimination of thermal bridges, controlled ventilation, solar protection, materials and the building’s actual performance throughout the year to be considered from the outset.
This approach makes particular sense on an island. Mallorca has privileged climatic conditions, but also limited resources and a landscape whose fragility demands careful consideration of how and how much we consume. Reducing cooling and heating needs, making better use of light and shade, selecting appropriate materials and reducing the ecological footprint are not separate issues from architecture. They are architecture.
Projects such as Son Coix II, Es Rafal de Son Macià and, more recently, VOLTOR demonstrate this evolution. VOLTOR, a 425-square-metre home in Port de Pollença with Passive House Plus certification, takes this idea a step further: energy efficiency, renewable energy generation, comfort and an open Mediterranean architecture can coexist without contradiction. Porches, overhangs, openings and connections with the outdoors are part of the same logic as the precision of the building envelope and mechanical ventilation.
Perhaps this is one of the most interesting contributions of the studio’s current stage. Making sustainability cease to be perceived as visible technology or as an aesthetic compromise. The best efficiency is often the kind that does not need to be explained: a house that maintains comfort, consumes far less energy, makes better use of the climate and, at the same time, still feels like a house in Mallorca.
Architecture that also cares
Estel de Llevant introduces another dimension of this same sense of responsibility. The intervention involved renovating and adapting an existing building in Manacor to create a new multi-service centre dedicated to mental health care. The project preserved the architectural character of the building while improving its functionality, accessibility and energy efficiency.
Organised around a central courtyard that provides natural light, ventilation and environmental quality, the building brings together day-care spaces, training rooms, workshops, a dining area, community activities and supported housing. It does not need grand gestures to communicate its purpose. There is proportion, clarity, intuitive circulation and spaces designed to be bright and welcoming. Above all, there is a simple idea: a building designed to care for people should also do so through its architecture.
That is why it made sense for the 30th anniversary celebration to take place there. In a project where renovation, efficiency, social responsibility and everyday life come together. In a building that does not seek to impose itself, but to serve.
Thirty years also means many people
Behind every completed photograph lies a story that rarely appears. Meetings, discarded sketches, changing plans, site visits in the cold or under the August heat, conversations with builders, carpenters, engineers, contractors, craftspeople and owners. Apparently small decisions that ultimately transform a space.
And then there are the clients, who give an architect something more important than a commission: their trust. Designing a home means entering, for a time, into the lives of the people who will inhabit it, understanding how they live, what they want to preserve, what they need and what they imagine when they think about their future. Thirty years of architecture are also thirty years of human relationships. That part of a journey cannot be measured in square metres.
Continuing to look as if it were the first day
After three decades, there are works, experience, photographs and memories. But there is something harder to preserve: curiosity. Arriving at an empty site and asking questions all over again. Entering an old house without deciding in advance what should disappear. Accepting that every project can teach us something new. Still feeling excitement when a building begins to resemble that first drawing.
Brunet Arquitectes celebrates thirty years by looking back only long enough to thank all the people who have been part of the journey. Then it is time to look forward again, from Manacor and from Mallorca, with an architecture that has changed and will continue to change, but that maintains one constant conviction: to create places that belong to their surroundings, consume resources more responsibly and make life a little better for the people who inhabit them.
Thirty years on, perhaps that is still the best way to celebrate architecture.
