Reform Apartament in Carabanchel
The city of Madrid in Spain counts on high-quality residential buildings made in the 50s and 60s, both at the urban planning level and at typology of buildings and homes. This is the case of the Juan XIII Colony in Carabanchel neighborhood designed by José Luis Romany, Carlos Ferrán and Eduardo Mangada and published in specialized magazines of the time. In this colony the architects built a type of housing imported from the London County Council: the “scissors flat”.
The house has three bays. The living room, the kitchen and the terrace are located in the southeast bay. In the intermediate bay, which rises half a floor from the exterior bays, there are two bathrooms and a bedroom. In the northwest bay there are three bedrooms. The hall that is accessed from a gallery is located in the intermediate bay below the bathrooms and the bedroom.
The reform of this house respects the spatial quality of the original home and seeks to give greater spatial continuity. The perception of fluid space is enhanced by enjoying the interior unevenness and cross ventilation offered by the double facade.
For this, the stair is given prominence by cleaning it from the partitions that encased it. The bedroom partition located in the middle bay is replaced by a glass enclosure that allows transparency that is complemented by an opaque fabric that hangs from a rail and allows privacy and darkness to be generated when necessary. Finally, the partition of the central bedroom of the exterior bay is removed, making it a study in continuity with the staircase and the living room. In this way it is possible to visualize the total length of the house of 14 meters.
Thanks to the fact that the house is on the top floor, the intermediate bay has natural light. Throughout the day you can perceive the sun's rays penetrating the different areas of the continuous space.
