DUNA
Imagen Subliminal

DUNA

gon architects as Architects

To design a home for someone is to know how to read and understand the different ways of life and living conditions of the people who are going to live in it, but it is also to venture in some way into the near and distant future, with a more nuanced view of the domestic, which allow us to draw a map of the evolution and transformation over time of the space.

photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal
photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal

This is how Victoria and Estefanía, the young couple who are the homeowners, together with their dog Duna -an Andalusian Bodeguero Buzzard-, contacted us in June 2022 by e-mail; and they did so with a long list of technical and spatial needs for living, among which they contemplated having a good terrace where they could spend time outdoors, having a kitchen open to the living room, being able to work from home and storing many books on the shelves, as they are great readers. "We have a lot of books, and a few vinyls", they told us.

photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal
photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal

The first meeting with them was in their future home, on the fourth floor of one of the 20 free-standing 17-storey housing towers built in Madrid in the 1960s by the architects Antonio Camuñas Paredes and José Antonio Camuñas Solís, which make up an urban fabric as dense as it is idiosyncratic, full of vegetation and public spaces, in the popular neighborhood of Canillas, where Victoria has lived all her life.

photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal
photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal

From the inside, this high position turns the apartment into a watchtower open to the landscape in the distance, and with a connection to the immediate surroundings it also allows the outside to be introduced inside. And it is in this way, from the outside in, taking into account the views, the horizon and the treetops, that this dwelling of slightly square proportions - 10x10 meters - and 105 m2, facing west, is designed. 

photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal
photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal

In contrast to the excessive compartmentalization of the existing layout, organized into 12 rooms, the proposal seeks to liberate the domestic space, not only to make it as fluid and flexible as possible but also to facilitate its opening to the exterior and therefore to natural light and the landscape. To this end, an organization is proposed that divides the apartment into two well-defined areas: a public one and a private one.

photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal
photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal

The epicenter of the public part is a white-lacquered metallic bookcase, 2.40 meters high and 2.35 meters long, 38 centimeters wide and 5 mm thick, with a capacity to hold up to 500 books; a vortex-object containing part of their collection of books, very light in appearance, situated in the heart of the apartment and which, through its design of concealed profiles, appears to be suspended between two pillars of exposed concrete. Books that float and at the same time organize and articulate the communal space, around which the actions of cooking, eating, resting, reading and even listening to music on the record player orbit.

photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal
photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal

A floor-to-ceiling white wall containing two hidden passages is the line that separates the public and private areas. While one passage gives access to a bedroom with an en suite bathroom, the other connects to a space that today is a workplace for both of them but which in the future could be adapted to a bedroom when their family grows. 

photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal
photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal

The transition from one world to the other, from the public to the private, takes place through thresholds materialized in carpets of yellow rectangular ceramic pieces; these liminal spaces, also present in the access to the dwelling, define an intermediate place while marking the transition from one room to another. Ceramics are also present in the spaces dedicated to body care, enveloping the back of the space in a terracotta colour, in order to define the specific limits of the shower. 

photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal
photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal

The L-shaped, west-facing terrace is the outdoor room that circulates around the public and private spaces of the apartment, but also works to brings the city inside. 

And it is precisely on this terrace, three months after moving in, in July 2023, that we set up an improvised domestic scene in the shade; we join two different tables and some chairs brought from here and there, lay a checkered tablecloth and order Vietnamese food. While we wait, Victoria prepares some Micheladas and Estefanía, on the deckchair, tells us how much the colour of the railing reminds her of her native Cádiz. Duna, the Andalusian dog, excitedly circles the apartment.

photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal
photo_credit Imagen Subliminal
Imagen Subliminal

Team:
Architecture: gon architects
Lead architect: Gonzalo Pardo
Design team: Carol Linares, Cristina Ramírez, María Cecilia Cordero, Kostís Toulgaridis, Celia Urbano, Despoina Papadopoulou.

Construction: REDO Construction
Photography: Imagen Subliminal (Miguel de Guzmán + Rocío Romero)

Caption
Caption

Read story in Español

Project Spotlight
Product Spotlight
News
Fernanda Canales designs tranquil “House for the Elderly” in Sonora, Mexico
12 Dec 2024 News
Fernanda Canales designs tranquil “House for the Elderly” in Sonora, Mexico

Mexican architecture studio Fernanda Canales has designed a semi-open, circular community center for... More

Australia’s first solar-powered façade completed in Melbourne
12 Dec 2024 News
Australia’s first solar-powered façade completed in Melbourne

Located in Melbourne, 550 Spencer is the first building in Australia to generate its own electricity... More

SPPARC completes restoration of former Victorian-era Army & Navy Cooperative Society warehouse
11 Dec 2024 News
SPPARC completes restoration of former Victorian-era Army & Navy Cooperative Society warehouse

In the heart of Westminster, London, the London-based architectural studio SPPARC has restored and r... More

Green patination on Kyoto coffee stand is brought about using soy sauce and chemicals
10 Dec 2024 News
Green patination on Kyoto coffee stand is brought about using soy sauce and chemicals

Ryohei Tanaka of Japanese architectural firm G Architects Studio designed a bijou coffee stand in Ky... More

New building in Montreal by MU Architecture tells a tale of two facades
10 Dec 2024 News
New building in Montreal by MU Architecture tells a tale of two facades

In Montreal, Quebec, Le Petit Laurent is a newly constructed residential and commercial building tha... More

RAMSA completes Georgetown University's McCourt School of Policy, featuring unique installations by Maya Lin
10 Dec 2024 News
RAMSA completes Georgetown University's McCourt School of Policy, featuring unique installations by Maya Lin

Located on Georgetown University's downtown Capital Campus, the McCourt School of Policy by Robert A... More

MVRDV-designed clubhouse in shipping container supports refugees through the power of sport
9 Dec 2024 News
MVRDV-designed clubhouse in shipping container supports refugees through the power of sport

MVRDV has designed a modular and multi-functional sports club in a shipping container for Amsterdam-... More

Archello Awards 2025 expands with 'Unbuilt' awards categories
9 Dec 2024 Archello Awards
Archello Awards 2025 expands with 'Unbuilt' project awards categories

Archello is excited to introduce a new set of twelve 'Unbuilt' project awards for the Archello Award... More