The architects Alicia Cabrera and Javier Blesa of OX Arquitectura, have reformed this duplex penthouse in the center of Madrid. The key: a perfect and sober handling of space, light and materials. The house is located next to the Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, Spain.
An achievement of closed pieces only connected by doors, and without spatial relationships, was the starting point.
The house now blurs the limits of each use, through the use of large built-in sliding doors, which, duly resolved in detail, can totally disappear, organizing an “open floor plan” where space and visuals flow easily, connecting spaces, so that each one takes advantage of the surface of the other, multiplying the feeling of increased space. The long visuals always end in a window, which emphasizes the interior-exterior connection.
The living room is articulated with the kitchen through an intermediate space, as an office-groumet as an extension of the living room, since it serves as the dining room that was removed from the living room to increase its use space, which is achieved, opening the slider and closing a guillotine window that makes the fire area independent.
The same strategy was used in the master bedroom, which connects to its en-suite bathroom, placing a large dressing room between them. The pieces of architecture and carpentry that define these four rooms, living room-kitchen and bedroom-bathroom, are placed in such a way that the visuals cross from one to another and at the same time, preserve the definition of each one, without affecting privacy despite the sliders being open, which allows them to be open as long as possible.
A particularity of the distribution was the impossible inclusion of a courtesy bathroom for visitors, in the public area. The solution, include it within the dressing room space and once again, articulate this space to another room, this time connecting it to the living room, dividing the suite in two, placing an intermediate sliding door, maintaining the intimacy of the bedroom, making the area public of bathrooms.
