SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos

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SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos

Information

  • Completion year: 2020
  • Project Location: Valencia
  • Country: Spain
  • Photo Credits: Milena Villalba
  • Others: Furniture: Nolek Design
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Excerpt: SMM penthouse, designed by Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos, covers one of the attic terraces to add a new room to the apartment. The intervention strategy seeks the indeterminacy of the space to enable multiple ways of occupation and appropriation, capable of accommodating not just one use but many. They seek a residential architecture close to its users, which allows movements to and dynamic events, changeable, psychoactive, and unpredictable, able to accommodate unexpected situations such as a long lockdown.

Project Description

[Text as submitted by architect] The project started from the proposal of the owners to cover one of the attic terraces in order to add a new room to the apartment. Something that according to local regulations wasn’t possible to undertake. Like other commissions, behind asking for one more room and a specific action, there was a need to tackle and a tailored solution for it. The penthouse is located in a representative building of Valencia’s old town. The eclectic-style construction was built at the end of the 19th century and due to its singular façade the alteration of its external appearance is not permitted.

SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
© Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
© Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
© Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos

The interior surface, barely 80 m2, is complemented by an area of ​​terraces of almost the same extension. The façade has a series of rhythmic openings, which bathe with natural light the interior and let the bells of the surrounding churches vibrate inside. The existing layout divided the available space without any principle, turning opaque part of the façade windows and generating unnecessary distributions for the scale of the house and rooms with a dysfunctional proportion. The clients understood that the house, although in good condition, did not quite meet their needs. They wanted to host family visits, so the penthouse had to accommodate users with different needs and ways of living, rstasing from a group of young people to an adult couple.

SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
© Milena Villalba
SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
© Milena Villalba

The answer was not to redistribute or cover a terrace to get a new room, but to unlearn the Western conception of housing as an addition of rooms, looking for a more fluid solution. The intervention strategy seeks the indeterminacy of the space to enable multiple ways of occupation and appropriation, capable of accommodating not just one use, but many. Kitchen, living room, storage room, bedroom, laundry and bathroom, previously closed and individual rooms, turn into a continuous cabinet that hosts all the services. The existing partitions are removed and a wooden ribbon is built so that the oscillating space between the interior and the terraces can be occupied in many different ways. During the day the folding doors are opened and the space flows into an open layout. When necessary, the space is divided using these folding doors and a more quiet and private room appears.

SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
© Milena Villalba
SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
© Milena Villalba
SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
© Milena Villalba

The new ‘thick wall’ sets a ribbon with a curvilinear trajectory, emphasized by the light that floods the apartment. The plywood board is showing  its birch interior, inviting to be touched and transformed. The continuous wooden furniture is not understood as the protagonist, but as a kind of background for the apartment, a framework that encourages users to express themselves freely. In the context of the pandemic caused by COVID-19 we see more than ever the need to overcome the conception of housing as a static, compositional and quantitative construction. On the contrary we seek a residential architecture, close to its users, which enables movements and dynamic events, changeable, psychoactive and unpredictable, able to accommodate unexpected situations such as a long lockdown.

SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
© Milena Villalba
SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
© Milena Villalba
SMM penthouse | Anna Solaz Arquitectes + CRUX arquitectos
© Milena Villalba

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