Ingredients to formulate an own rural style

The importance of the environment

When it comes to recreating a rural style, observation and assimilation of the environment plays a key role. The choice of materials in harmony with this environment is essential to achieve a true and authentic rural style. At the end of the day, it is a question of merging housing with what is characteristic of rural areas, with nature and its ways of doing things.

This is an exercise in observation and abstraction of the environment in which the house is located to find the elements that will reinforce the rural style.

In this sense, it is interesting to define in some way what we can understand by the rural style from an intuitive point of view. It would be a recognizable style like that of the towns with a high connection with the natural environment. The rural style is opposed to the urban and we can differentiate it from the rustic, as a higher gradation in authenticity.

While rustic is an aspect that can be easily reproduced in any field, rural style demands a level of authenticity that we can hardly reproduce. If we start from a pre-existing construction, our work focuses on recovery. If we start from scratch, the challenge is huge and the result will depend on the user’s predisposition, the characteristics of the place and the ability of the interior designer to capture and recreate the essence of the place and the client in the property.

Characteristic elements of rural environments and how to make them protagonists of an interior design proposal.

The stone in walls

The natural stone used to build walls is perhaps the most characteristic element of the rural environment. Using the native natural stone in the walls offers a weight at a visual and material level in the integration with the environment.

Mud tiles

The terracotta tiles are another basic element of the most authentic and simple rural style. On the other hand, clay tiles offer thermal advantages: in summer it keeps the cool and in winter the heat. In its artisanal elaboration we can include singular pieces if we go to the suitable warehouse.

Wood and iron enclosures

This point is interesting since it is about preserving as many elements of the original construction, although we can re-update them with good craftsmanship, improving the isolation while maintaining the original materials in their definition. The most common are the wood and iron enclosures. These form an interesting contrast with other more contemporary elements such as aluminum, as they trace us back to the original use of rural housing.

Furniture made of natural wood, original and recovered

The rural style is updated with the avant-garde and contemporary look, but its base is built with recovered and original elements such as natural wood furniture recovered.

To obtain the original furniture, you can restore those who are in the house or visit the local second-hand shops or … ask the neighbors , maybe they have some original piece they do not need

Vegetation as the main actor

Although the original furniture or the distinctive elements such as cattle or agricultural appliances are in some way common in the different provinces, the element that really roots the project to the local place and distinguishes it is undoubtedly the vegetation-distinctive of the zone and that fuses the housing with the surroundings, the objective of the rural style.

Vegetation in harmony with the environment

The subtlety and the concepts when projecting any space, make up the intangible soul of a good design. Or at least that is how we conceived it in our architecture and interior design studio in Barcelona. As an example of this, a garden, if possible, it is better to preserve some native species to keep the umbilical cord with the earth.

On the other hand, if the species is native, its conservation is better guaranteed and therefore implies less maintenance.