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sequencehouse

Flat renovation in the Malasaña neighborhood, Madrid

The traditional structure of apartments in Madrid, a system of load-bearing walls parallel to the facade that enclose a set of rooms of different sizes that revolve around interior courtyards and are isolated and at the same time connected by a corridor, is the starting point for this house for a single person located on the third floor of an apartment building in the Malasaña neighborhood. The most singular physical and measurable characteristic of the apartment is its length: from one end of the house to the other there are 21 linear metres that give the hints for an adequate intervention. The project's floor plan is the result of a complete emptying of the house that organizes the domestic space into a single environment in which it is compatible with the spatial strategy of walls of the initial state. In other words, the pre-existing system of contiguous rooms is re-established only in this second life, larger and connected to each other ensuring that the unity and continuity between the parts is recovered. Consequently, new topological and programmatic relationships result in a free and fluid domestic space, liquid,where the concept of a living space is investigated through the construction of scenographies of the habitat linked to the basic actions of cooking, sleeping, resting, working, relating and cleaning and caring for the body. The corners of the rooms, formerlycul de sacare understood as areas of opportunity to experiment through visual elements that turn the space into a curve and constitute, through the use of colour and lighting, in a symbolic way, the place where an action takes place. These spaces shape a domestic scenic production that, on a continuous wooden floor, besides understanding and enhancing the dwelling as a living place, also allows the house to be explained as a succession of contemporary narratives that articulate the transversal and longitudinal routes, public and private, that can be constantly reconfigured according to the needs of Carlos, its owner, facilitating, against the exclusive domestic functionalism, the dream of living.

Built work

FINALIST. FAD de Arquitectura y Diseño 2020 Prize

Credits

Location Madrid, Spain

Year 2020

Built area 124m2

Client private

Architecture gon (Gonzalo Pardo) + Ana Torres

Team Alejandro Sánchez, Carol Linares, Carlos Barranco, Clara Dios, Iván Rando

Construction Serviteco Obras s.l

Carpentry Alma Ebanistería s.l

Kitchen Barronkress s.l