A kind empowerment. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects
03/04/2024.
[MAD] Spain
metalocus, ADELA BONAS
metalocus, ADELA BONAS
The residential project designed by Ignacio G. Galán and OF Architects, located on the outskirts of Madrid, at the end of a row of single-family houses, aims, through a sequence of spaces, to recognize the relationships of dependency between the inhabitants and their social environments. and materials, generate a space that empowers ageing.
“Beyond-the-family Kin” features a “sawtooth” silhouette with a pastel colour palette that dialogues with the nearby suburban industrial facilities. The building organizes various forms of habitability on each of its three floors, with different degrees of autonomy and interdependence between them. With its image, it seeks to achieve a certain centrality in the neighbourhood despite its small scale, as a key node of its social life.
“Beyond-the-family Kin” features a “sawtooth” silhouette with a pastel colour palette that dialogues with the nearby suburban industrial facilities. The building organizes various forms of habitability on each of its three floors, with different degrees of autonomy and interdependence between them. With its image, it seeks to achieve a certain centrality in the neighbourhood despite its small scale, as a key node of its social life.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Floor plan access. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Floor plan garden. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Floor plan top. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Floor plan roof. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Section plans. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Section plans. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Elevations. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Elevations. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Elevations. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Axonometry. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Scene renderings. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Scene renderings. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Scene renderings. Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects.
Through the development of technological and formal strategies together with a sequence of cascading terraces, the project developed by Ignacio G. Galán and OF Architects creates situations that facilitate socialization between the inhabitants of the residence and counteracts the isolation that older people usually suffer, in other types of residences.
This building houses various forms of care, both inside and outside the homes, promoting energy efficiency and environmental quality through an interesting volumetric organization, which allows natural ventilation and its combination with curtain walls, which guarantees that the natural climatic conditions are optimal, which allow the project to have open and malleable links with the outside, avoiding subjecting the older population to contemporary isolation.
As the architects comment: "Relying on the advantage of creating a front terrace that allows a strong connection with the street and favours the formation of an informal community of neighbours," the formal strategies used in the context created by the row houses are rebalanced.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
This building houses various forms of care, both inside and outside the homes, promoting energy efficiency and environmental quality through an interesting volumetric organization, which allows natural ventilation and its combination with curtain walls, which guarantees that the natural climatic conditions are optimal, which allow the project to have open and malleable links with the outside, avoiding subjecting the older population to contemporary isolation.
As the architects comment: "Relying on the advantage of creating a front terrace that allows a strong connection with the street and favours the formation of an informal community of neighbours," the formal strategies used in the context created by the row houses are rebalanced.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Project description by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects
Beyond-the-family Kin is a platform for empowering ageing. It operates within a network of infrastructures shaping a renewed social movement for aging in place. Countering the increasing isolation of older residents or their subjection to institutionalized forms of residence, the project hosts diverse forms of care across generations beyond the nuclear family both within and outside the house and furnishes technological and financial strategies supporting the life of its occupants.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Located at the end of a row of single-family houses on the outskirts of the city, the project combines diverse living arrangements on each of its three floors, with different degrees of autonomy and interdependence between them. While none of them neatly responds to the needs of the hegemonic family, together they facilitate kinship-in-the-making: the first floor, accessed through the street through a short ramp, contains a sequence of spaces for an ageing couple with increasing mobility difficulties; above it, a pair of rooms flanking a living space is planned to host the couple’s frequent visitors within their extended and chosen family; the lower level is organized as a one-bedroom apartment that the couple could rent to pursue financial stability or might host an attendant should they need one. The proximity of the city’s main university campus could also lead to rehearsing models that connect students and ageing individuals for affordable housing, shared resources, and mutual care. Ultimately, Beyond-the-family Kin counters constructed notions of the family house as an autonomous and stable social unit while acknowledging the relations of dependency between the inhabitants and their social and material environments.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
A cascading sequence of terraces enhances a range of ecologies and activities hosted within the project, creates opportunities for socialization between the different occupants of the residence, and grounds the house within diverse networks of the neighbourhood. The front terrace, which the project privileges, enables a strong connection with the street and favours the formation of a loose community of neighbours—countering current design strategies for row houses in the area that favour of a more secluded backyard. Several rolling pots and a beehive on the roof terrace are part of a system of urban farms which prevails in the neighbourhood despite its recent parcel subdivisions and densification while other gardening opportunities are distributed throughout the project. A small pool serves for exercising for the residents and their friends. With a ridge silhouette in dialogue with suburban industrial facilities and its stark colour palette, the house seeks to attain a certain centrality in the neighbourhood despite its small scale—as a key node of its social life. Neither nostalgic about old forms of sociality nor submitting to the contemporary isolation of ageing populations, the project celebrates open and malleable linkages and affiliations.
Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Finally, several interconnected formal and technological strategies favour the energy efficiency and environmental quality of the project. The house’s complex volume allows the majority of its rooms to open in more than one façade, facilitating cross ventilation and natural cooling, which are enhanced by the staircase operating as an air shaft. Operable windows in the living room’s sawtooth roof enhance both lighting and ventilation in this key space. Automatized louvres in the windows control heat gains and lighting from different orientations. A prominent structure in the roof optimizes the orientation of the solar panels that power an extremely efficient system of heating and cooling radiating floors. Combined with a rear-ventilated curtain-wall tile facade with rain-screen ceramic cladding and corrugated steel panels, these systems guarantee that no AC will be needed in the project even in the extreme weather of Madrid. Conceived as overlapping approaches to empowering the life of its ageing occupants, these strategies are additionally committed to preserving the rights of future generations.
More information
Architects
Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects. Lead architects.- Ignacio G. Galán, Alvaro M. Fidalgo, and Arantza Ozaeta.
Project team
Ana Herreros Cantís, Natalia Molina, Paula Rodriguez Vara, Pablo Saiz del Rio.
Collaborators
Quantity Surveyor.- Jorge Chico Jimenez.
Structural Engineers.- Mecanismo Ingenieria.
Structural Engineers.- Mecanismo Ingenieria.
Dates
2023.
Location
Madrid, Spain.
Photography
Imagen Subliminal. Miguel de Guzman, Rocio Romero Rivas.
Arantza Ozaeta, Álvaro Martín Fidalgo. O.F. Architects
O.F. Architects. Architecture studio formerly known as TallerDe2, founded in 2008 by Arantza Ozaeta and Álvaro Martín Fidalgo established in Madrid, Spain. Both architects conceive their work as a collaborative practice, bringing together work teams with members whose diverse backgrounds contribute to achieving high-quality projects with responsible results for a happy life. His interests focus on the exploration of architecture as a vehicle for urban regeneration, intergenerational care and socio-environmental challenges, developing initiatives in collaboration with private, municipal and territorial agents in permanent commitment to innovative practice.
O.F. Architects has won and built national and international competitions, and its work has been recognized on multiple occasions, including the German Bauwelt-Preis Award (2013), for the best first work built; the COAM-Luis Moreno Mansilla Award (2013), for the best work carried out abroad; the FAD Prize for Thought and Criticism (2016), in collaboration with the HipoTesis publishing house; the Europe 40under40 recognition (2017) by the European Centre. His work has also been selected and exhibited at the Spanish Architecture Biennial (2013-2021), the FAD Internacional (2014) and the FAD Arquitectura (2020). Also in the international exhibitions «Archipaper. Drawings from the plane» (2018), «Architetus Omnibus?» (2015) or "Export Spanish Architecture Abroad" (2015). They have curated the lecture series Argumento#1 “Sampling-Contexts” at the ETSAM where they are also editors of the book of the same name that was recognized with the COAM-Diffusion Award (2021).
Arantza Ozaeta and Álvaro Martín Fidalgo combine professional practice with academic and research work, developing their teaching activities at the AA-Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, the ETH in Zurich, the Hochschule Coburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany and in the Higher Technical School of Architecture of Madrid-ETSAM, where they are currently professors in the Department of Architectural Projects.
O.F. Architects has won and built national and international competitions, and its work has been recognized on multiple occasions, including the German Bauwelt-Preis Award (2013), for the best first work built; the COAM-Luis Moreno Mansilla Award (2013), for the best work carried out abroad; the FAD Prize for Thought and Criticism (2016), in collaboration with the HipoTesis publishing house; the Europe 40under40 recognition (2017) by the European Centre. His work has also been selected and exhibited at the Spanish Architecture Biennial (2013-2021), the FAD Internacional (2014) and the FAD Arquitectura (2020). Also in the international exhibitions «Archipaper. Drawings from the plane» (2018), «Architetus Omnibus?» (2015) or "Export Spanish Architecture Abroad" (2015). They have curated the lecture series Argumento#1 “Sampling-Contexts” at the ETSAM where they are also editors of the book of the same name that was recognized with the COAM-Diffusion Award (2021).
Arantza Ozaeta and Álvaro Martín Fidalgo combine professional practice with academic and research work, developing their teaching activities at the AA-Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, the ETH in Zurich, the Hochschule Coburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany and in the Higher Technical School of Architecture of Madrid-ETSAM, where they are currently professors in the Department of Architectural Projects.
Ignacio G. Galán
Ignacio G. Galan. Spanish architect based in New York, USA. He is an architect from ETSAM, Spain, and has a master's degree in architecture from Harvard GSD as well as a master's degree from Princeton University.
The office's collaborative projects have been awarded in different competitions, including the Second Prize for the Beti Jai Stadium in Madrid and the First Prize for the New Velodrome in Medellín, which is part of the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center. The office has recently designed and built a number of projects exploring new forms of residence, hospitality and care, including Another Seedbed and Beyond-the-family Kin.
His work has been included in the international exhibition at the 2021 Venice Biennale (Your Restroom is a Battleground and The Restroom Pavilion), the 2014 Venice Biennale (Cinecittà Occupata) and at the New York Center for Architecture in 2022 (Aging Against the Machine) among other spaces. Together with the After Belonging Agency, he was chief curator of the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale and co-editor of “After Belonging: The Objects, Spaces, and Territories of the Ways We Stay in Transit”, published by Lars Muller. He is also a member of the research project Radical Pedagogies and was co-curator of its exhibition at the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale and the 2014 Venice Biennale, and co-editor of the book of the same name, published by MIT Press.
Ignacio G. Galán is an assistant professor at Barnard and Columbia Colleges and teaches classes at Columbia GSAPP.
The office's collaborative projects have been awarded in different competitions, including the Second Prize for the Beti Jai Stadium in Madrid and the First Prize for the New Velodrome in Medellín, which is part of the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center. The office has recently designed and built a number of projects exploring new forms of residence, hospitality and care, including Another Seedbed and Beyond-the-family Kin.
His work has been included in the international exhibition at the 2021 Venice Biennale (Your Restroom is a Battleground and The Restroom Pavilion), the 2014 Venice Biennale (Cinecittà Occupata) and at the New York Center for Architecture in 2022 (Aging Against the Machine) among other spaces. Together with the After Belonging Agency, he was chief curator of the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale and co-editor of “After Belonging: The Objects, Spaces, and Territories of the Ways We Stay in Transit”, published by Lars Muller. He is also a member of the research project Radical Pedagogies and was co-curator of its exhibition at the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale and the 2014 Venice Biennale, and co-editor of the book of the same name, published by MIT Press.
Ignacio G. Galán is an assistant professor at Barnard and Columbia Colleges and teaches classes at Columbia GSAPP.
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