A Dialogue Of Curves

Aug 20

Written by Omar Dahabra

Location: Madrid, Spain
Year: 2023
Architects: Adam Bresnick
Photography by: Amores Pictures

The first floor in a building from the fifties, the apartment is spacious with good proportions and a nice number of windows, the original distribution featured an endless hall from the entrance door at the back to the 3 rooms facing the street. A series of different spaces, including kitchen bath surround the courtyard: an antiquated layout which does not respond to the needs of a contemporary family with an adolescent son. To respond to their needs, 2 bedrooms and baths are placed to either side of the living room; the three main rooms facing the street. A series of uses are strategically positioned in the large space opening to the courtyard: entrance, a walk-in closet that is an independent volume, the kitchen with an island and work bench against the courtyard façade which extends into a peninsula for the dining room table. Curved forms articulate the service spaces (bathroom and closet), accompanied by curves that close both extremes of the island, the table, and the dropped ceilings. The curved walls are finished in raw plaster. The curved forms organize uses visually connected yet carefully zoned, in contrast with the rectilinear forms of the original architecture.

The materiality articulates further contrasts. The façade to the patio was left in exposed brick, as was the bearing wall parallel to the street—defining the 3 main rooms. In a similar way in the rooms the layers of paint on the ceilings and some walls were partially stripped to leave a distressed finish, revealing and respecting the passage of time. This dialogue between old and new is followed by the materiality of the floors: sky blue mosaic glass tiles emphasize the continuity of this space while adding luminosity and a contrast to the wide plank oak floors in the 3 front rooms.

An oculus inserted in an old opening connects the living room to the central spaces, adding to the dialogue of curves.

Recovered doors, stripped and with mirrors instead of glass, add another layer of privacy to the 2 bedrooms, yet also serve to enlarge the space. The lighting, while casual in its aesthetic, underlines the contemporary and respectful nature of the intervention. The whole project focused on an economy of means and used low-cost materials. Text description by the architects.

Source: www.adambresnick.com
Photography by: Amores Pictures
Team Project: Adam Bresnick Hecht, Miguel Peña Martínez-Conde, Pablo Sebastián Baldó, Jorge Ferrer Arapiles, Carmen Martínez Jiménez, Marta Bermejo Chacón, Alberto Runco.

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