GM3 Apartment in downtown Madrid by Cristóbal architect

The reform of this apartment in downtown Madrid transformed a former office in a house of 170 m².

It takes as its starting point the project needs the program provided by the owners and the structural and technical floor.

The clients, a young couple with two children, need large spaces but sufficiently divided to maintain privacy between areas of the house. In particular, they wanted a play area for children to be independent but easily controllable.

Following these directions the program needs are grouped to form two distinct areas:
- The public area includes the lounge, games room, kitchen, shower room, laundry room and pantry.
- The private zone incorporates the bedrooms and bathrooms.

The project physically and visually frees the two areas to the point of concealing the door to the hallway that serves as distributor of the private area.

Sought, in both areas, open spaces and bright. This will pull many of the existing partitions, applications are grouped and spaces and new partitions are constructed of glass.

The rooms in the house, apart from its luminosity, is characterized by sobriety on the use of materials. The soil, Cumaru wood, extends throughout the house and becomes the main material of the house as opposed to white walls and ceilings.

The regular geometry of space reinforces the simplicity of the action. The cabinets, built in lacquered white, are integrated into the panels of the walls and absorb all the irregularities due to the structure and facilities.

In each of the two areas, the reform has a role. In the public area furniture share the limelight the great continuum of 16m in length and the glass box of the game room. With the unit spaces are unified living room, game room and kitchen. This furniture changes its function in each space and hide the doors giving access to hallway, shower room, laundry room and pantry.

The game room, built with two glass walls and located between the living room and kitchen, can see through it increasing the size of the set. Each glass wall has a curtain that can play with the relationship between the three spaces. Dynamic transparency achieved in the game that gives the blinds and the changing reflections of glass throughout the day, unpredictable and creates a space rich in nuances.

In the private area of the home ownership lies another glass box: the shower. In the master bedroom shower is placed 2.5 m x 1m with two tempered glass enclosed floor to ceiling. These glasses give the space a game room visual effects (reflections and lights) in appearance changing throughout the day.

The resulting architecture in this reform, intended to be an enabler to support the lives of their owners and not a factor.

Location: Madrid, España
Architects: Cristóbal + Monaco arquitectos
Project: 2007
Completion: 2008
Type: Residential Building
Client:
Area: 170 m²
Cost: 100000 €
Images: Lola Marazuela