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Project Details:

Location: Madrid, Spain

Photographer: Imagen Subliminal / @imagensubliminal

From the Architect: “Casa Costa is located on the top floor of a three-story linear block in a 1980s urban development, situated in northern Madrid next to the A1 highway. Our challenge was to transform a 430-square-foot pass-through dwelling (complete with a terrace and four rooms) into an open, boundary-free space. To do this we relied on the true protagonist of this site, which are the views on both sides of the house.  Overlooking a grove of cedar and tall poplar trees, the views create an environment that feels as if one is floating among the treetops from inside the house. The owner, Costa, is a visual designer for a consulting firm who works from home. Like Cosimo, the main character in Italo Calvino’s 1957 novel ‘The Baron Rampant,’ Costa lives in the heights, surrounded by vegetation and nature.

“The house is defined by two terraces: a public one facing north and a private one facing south. The layout revolves around a central volume, a box that contains a pass-through bathroom and storage. It also creates a double circulation path, enhancing the home’s flexibility and permeability with views and cross ventilation, and the possibility of circular paths.

“In this way, Casa Costa is proposed as a house that rotates around a bathroom. On one hand it allows nature and the landscape to pass through, and on the other, it seeks to organize it into two distinct areas, according to a private-public vector. The private area at the house’s entrance contains the bedroom. The public, on the other side of the volume, includes a single room. It is delimited by a diagonal in the false ceiling, constituted by a kitchen with a living room.

“In contrast to the idea of a compact volume, we opted for a fragmented design, with different materials, colors, and textures that multiply the number of ‘faces’ in the apartment.”

“The material and finishing system used in both the horizontal and vertical planes reinforces the ideas of continuity, flexibility, and exteriority in the house. The pavements are designed as a continuous element that blurs the boundary between what is inside and what is outside. The floor-to-ceiling curtains offer the image of a mutable space. The painted color planes on walls and ceilings define specific spaces within the house.”