Casa Flix

Casa Flix | Madrid, Spain | 2024
[gon architects]

The current perception of attics in city centers stands out for their potentially attractive character: they are elevated places, floating above the roofs, structures partially visible from the street, not very accessible and sometimes associated with a bohemian lifestyle.

The spatial configuration of the attic, very different from the rest of the floors of the building, responds to urban planning regulations that generally are characterized by the arrangement of sloping roofs and large rooms with few partitions and a low ceiling height.

This is the home of Roberto, the owner of the casa flix, a 42m2 first floor flat located on a sixth floor without elevator in a building in the center of Madrid, built in 1900, very close to the busy Callao square.

With an initial layout of the house organized in two rooms, a rectangular one of 10×4 meters (with a fireplace in the middle) and a square one of 3×3 meters, both with sloping roofs but with slopes in different directions, this house of minimum dimensions seeks to make the living space an optimal, flexible, diverse and bright place from its use in plan, but especially from the occupation of the section.

For this purpose, a house is designed to be divided into four spatial areas: four successive rooms connected physically and visually that correspond, from north to south, with the bedroom/dressing room, the entrance, the workspace/bathroom and the kitchen/living/dining room.

The entrance is a tall and elongated space of 8.20 meters in length, with an exterior part that is a terrace through which the house is accessed, and an interior part that is a blue tunnel that has a metal shelf and circular window; a space that tries to recreate the interior of a ship on the high seas.

The bathroom occupies the heart of the house and is designed in an atomized form, that is, making the sink and toilet independent of the shower in a width of 90 centimeters; this operation facilitates the maximum use of the useful height of the house, in addition to its articulation in areas with different degrees of privacy.

The washbasin and toilet are concealed in a closed volume paneled with 2.10-meter-high mirrors, which is accessed from the entrance through a secret door located in one of them. This strategically placed mirrored cabin enlarges the space while offering a multitude of different reflections and visuals depending on whether the door is half-open, open, or closed.

The shower, on the other hand, is located inside the room and is separated from the rest of the house by a glass block wall that during the day lets in natural light and provides the necessary privacy inside this space.

The kitchen furniture is designed as a linear structure 5.5 meters long, 60 centimeters wide and 2. 02 meters high -a volume capable of holding up to 1167 m3- where a large part of the various objects, cleaning products, kitchen utensils, appliances and clothes of the apartment are stored, in a hidden way; a compact wall laminated HPL ultra matte pale yellow color that brings brightness in the darkest part of the house and that is built from the union of furniture, both shells and doors, with standard market measures that reduce costs in the construction of the same.

To increase the maximum entry of natural light and ventilation in the apartment, in addition to the existing roof windows two more are added, one in the bedroom and one in the living room. The access door to the apartment is replaced by a transparent glass door that allows light to pass through when the door is closed.

The furniture in the house is arranged on a continuous 1×1 meter porcelain floor and is small but precise. A table, a sofa, a bed and four chairs form a landscape based on a system of design objects that articulate and qualify each of the different spaces of the house.

At night, the house is transformed. The shower cubicle becomes a lantern that illuminates the entire domestic space and, as if it were a set design for a Wes Anderson film, the casa flix, with its light furniture and indirect lights, seems to float under a large sloping roof. And so, from the bed, with all the silence and through one of the roof windows, you can see the iconic Schweppes sign of the Capitol building on Gran Via that takes us, literally, from Madrid to heaven. Text description by the architects.