106 · Øki
by elii

Credits:
Architects: elii – Uriel Fogué, Eva Gil, Carlos Palacios
Project coordinator architect: elii – Ana López
Development: elii – Ana López + Lucía Fernández + Laura Barros + Telmo Sagartzazu
Model: Havi Navarro
Construction: Aniceto Jiménez
Joinery: Alfredo Merino Caldas
Developer: Óscar Naranjo
Surface: 74,17m2
Location: Madrid, España
Client: Privado
Date: 2019
Photography: Imagen Subliminal (Miguel de Guzmán + Rocío Romero)

Complete makeover for home and office

The project involves the complete rehabbing of a flat in the southwest of Madrid. A young person decides to renovate the family home where he grew up and lived for many years to turn it into his new home and professional office. The project starts off with a review of memories, experiences and life lessons, to rethink the present and imagine a future for this new stage of life. The challenge lies in designing a space that facilitates, accelerates and accompanies this process; to devise a sort of home catalyst, located in the heart of a residential building in the neighborhood of Las Aguilas in the district of La Latina. The first step consists of reprogramming the pre-existing dwelling: a flat loaded with memory, built in the seventies of the last century reflecting a generic typological scheme based on standardized domestic criteria. Accordingly, there is an open central space semicircular in shape, around which the rest of the rooms orbit. This provides a flexible scheme that fosters cross relations and promotes interaction, reducing walking distances and increasing the potential afforded by space. The central space opens out towards the main façade, making the most of natural light. In addition, it integrates a number of unique points, such as an area for the turntable and the record collection, the space for the chaise longue and the projection screen or a reading point located on the terrace, where folding walls allow the façade to be opened completely to let this outdoor space to be added to the interior of the home. The kitchen area faces the center point of the semicircular room, favoring a direct relationship between the two. The resting and work areas complete the side band, and are separated by transitional and storage spaces. Lastly, the bathroom hugs the curve, completing the scheme, out of sight behind a hidden door. The geometry, the background dimension and the position of the openings also make it possible to turn this domestic space into a photography studio. The curve is finished in vertical wooden elements that play on optics and colors, whenever the inhabitants move, creating a dynamic effect of vibration and depth in this special place. The single-leaf carpentries open out onto the urban landscape, interrupted only at specific points by the leaves on the trees or on the tropical prints of the awnings. The resting area is finished in dark tones. The bathroom is equipped with luminaires that can be configured to create different chromatic atmospheres. Openings are arranged to facilitate cross ventilation in summer. Finally, an energy monitoring system can be used to control electricity consumption, connecting the domestic sphere with large-scale ecological programmes. The geometric and dimensional scheme intensifies the power of space, inviting (and inciting) users to appropriate it and to try out different choreographies of bodies and objects. The whole forms an open scheme for the hedonistic experience of its inhabitant; a place for ” self-care”.

“Self-care”

1. Rehearsing the future.
Designing one’s own future as an architectural experiment: trying out other forms of life, rewriting life scripts, redefining limits.
Architecture is a science of fiction.

2. Reprogramming (us).
We usually inhabit spaces that have not been designed for us. A project of this kind is an invitation to rewrite this spatial contract. Architectures for self-care.

3. Dejà vu. Memory editing consists of discovering the unknown in the familiar and the familiar in the unknown. Previous futures.

4. Suspend the generic. Altering the criteria of need. Designing one’s own domestic space based on desire. Opening a bubble of intimacy in standardized formats to try out other ways of life. Amplify the differences.

5. Indetermination.
The challenge is to design indeterminate spaces that can heighten power and that invite (and incite) us to appropriate them. Choreographies of bodies and objects.

6. Kinetic condition. A space that is activated and vibrates with movement. Excitable architecture.

7. Interscalarity. Energy monitoring technologies connect the domestic space with larger-scale ecological programs. Expand the cosmos of the political.

Architects: elii

eliimolinos
www.elii.es
info@elii.es
+34 911157658
c/ Maestro Arbós 3
28045 Madrid, SPAIN

elii carries out its professional activity in the following fields: Infrastructures, Urban Development, Public Spaces, Individual and Collective housing, Offices and Work Centres, Industrial Buildings, Ephemeral Architecture and Design of Museum Exhibitions and collaboration with artists. Elii covers all stages of the project, from the design phase to project management, working both in the public and private sectors, in Spain and Abroad. Founded in 2006 and based in the centre of Madrid, its founding partners and current directors are the architects Uriel Fogué Herreros, Eva Gil Lopesino and Carlos Palacios Rodriguez, all of whom have previously worked in architectural firms of international renown. They currently combine their work at elii with teaching (in several Spanish universities of international renown) and editorial work (UHF magazine). Their work and articles have appeared in specialized publications and exhibitions, having obtained recognition and awards for outstanding performance, amongst which are the FAD Opinion Award (2005), or the awards received from the Official College of Architects of Madrid “a la Obra Bien Hecha”(2006), “a la Obra de los Arquitectos” (2011), and “COAM Award” (2013) or the JustMad Award to Emergent Creativity (2013). They have been amongst those selected to appear in the “Arquia Próxima” catalogue (also issued by the Official College of Architects of Madrid) in its 2006-207, 2008-2009, 2010-2011 issues, having been recognized in this last one as one of the 10 most relevant teams of young architects in the region. They have also taken part in the “Madrid 100% Arquitectura II” (2011), catalogue and Itinerant International Exhibition, where one of their works was considered one of the top 100 by the Official College of Architects of Madrid. They were also similarly distinguished in the XII Buenos Aires International Biennial Architecture Exhibition (2011), recently selected as one of the “100 architects of the year 2012” in the exhibition for the KIA Korean Institute of Architects and the UIA International Union of Architects in Seoul (2012) and as a part of the exhibition FreshLatino 2 (2013). Elii is a member of the “Creadores de Madrid” and “FreshMadrid” archives.