Project: House AS
Architects: Ábaton Arquitectos
Lead Architects: Camino Alonso, Carlos Alonso, Ignacio Lechón, Fernando Alonso, Guillermo Santos, Carlos Jiménez
Area: 700 m²
Year: 2021
Location: Madrid, Spain
Photo credits: Belén Imaz
This 700 square meters isolated single-family house, with a CLT wood structure, was designed for a family with small children who trusted Ábaton for the project. In this case, the studio developed the interior design and landscaping projects, as well as took care of the architecture and construction.
The existing unevenness in the plot, of approximately 3,000 square meters, allowed the creation of a house with two floors, both in direct contact with the ground.
The ground floor, with its garden facing north and closest to the access to the plot, has its own entrance and houses the guest area, gym, and other secondary uses, including the garage. The upper floor, linked to the largest area of the garden, brings together all the family rooms. Bedrooms, living room, kitchen, projection room, porches… all the areas on this floor are intelligently located to facilitate family gatherings and interaction.
The entrance to the house AS is through a covered platform, which is raised above the ground. This gives access to a hall in which the protagonist is a central patio, which functions as a nucleus around which the common spaces revolve.
This patio is glassed on all four sides and makes all the spaces that surround it visually relate. Likewise, it allows the entry of light from the south into the north of the house and vice versa. It is designed to remain open during the mild climate months of the year, thus replacing circulation around the patio with paths through it. It also serves to ventilate the house at night while the perimeter of the house remains closed, maintaining its security.
Ábaton designed the furnishing and decoration of this area to maintain the fluidity of the spaces linked by this central patio. In the same way, Ábaton took into account the importance of the total coherence that the visual connection caused by it demanded.
On the south side of this patio is the dining room, connected to it by a large window that, due to its orientation and size, projects an indirect, intense and constant light over the dining area.
The fireplace, suspended from the deck, is open in all directions and divides the living and dining areas. Next to it there is a bench executed in work in front of a fixed glass, which faces the patio to the west and through which the afternoon light enters. This light, together with the warmth of the fireplace, will make up one of the most enjoyable winter corners of the house. Adjacent to the dining room is the living room, open to the east and south, where the main porch, garden, and pool appear.
The large sliding windows in this area were designed so that they could completely disappear behind the walls, giving this entire space, 3.6 meters high, the feeling of a large open porch. Across from the dining room is the kitchen.
At the back of the kitchen is the daily dining room, which opens onto the garden through a window that, like others in the house, is completely hidden in the wall to transform the experience of interior space into the exterior.
The exposed concrete sheet on the kitchen ceiling projects to the south defining the barbecue porch; it is the most open covered space in the house, with a panoramic view of the surrounding nature, linked to the kitchen, the garden, the pool, and the orchard.
To the north of the central patio and the living room entrance, the family area is located. The children’s room, to study or play, and the cinema room, which overlooks the central patio in front of the dining room and the bedrooms and their adjoining areas.
Access to the master bedroom is through the bathroom-dressing room, flooded with light by a second patio. Again, large windows that can be hidden make the bathroom and dressing room appropriate, and enjoy an intimate outdoor space. Once in the main bedroom, we see how it faces south, enjoying one of the most privileged and at the same time private views, thanks to its layout with respect to the rest of the areas of the house.
A large sliding door opens onto a sheet of water over which the pool, located on a higher level, overflows. In front of the porch, adjoining the pool and by the request of the owners, a green meadow area was projected. The rest of the garden, still in an initial phase of growth, can be included in the “new perennial” landscape movement. With more than 50 species, it signifies, differentiates, and accentuates the different spaces of the garden.
