The Z42 housing project executed by Garmendia Cordero Arquitectos aims to bring the existing natural light thanks to the main facade of large windows throughout the house and generate a versatile final distribution adaptable to the needs of the inhabitants. The homes are located in the city of Bilbao, capital of the province and historical territory of Vizcaya in the autonomous community of the Basque Country, in northern Spain.

With an area to be intervened of more than 200 m², which meant the segregation of office space and the subsequent fitting of two new homes in it, where space is characterized by being open and regular in plan, it was decided to use a single design concept to solve the program. 
The proposal of Garmendia Cordero Arquitectos centralizes the most difficult elements to modify, kitchen and bathroom and allows the rest of the housing program to be perfectly interchangeable in its use.

As a final element that makes the realization of the project possible, a minimal intervention was proposed creating a wooden piece of furniture that would organize the house that, in addition to housing various uses, would allow the visual and functional connection of all the resulting rooms, which revolve around to the wooden piece.
 

Description of project by Garmendia Cordero Arquitectos

What we have experienced this 2020 has left among other things, many doors open in terms of home space requirements. Current shortcomings in the current real estate market were exposed and therefore a new opportunity to have a well-needed discussion about housing schemes has started.

Although this project began before the COVID pandemic, it reveals dilemmas that should be part of this public debate, at least as a starting point. 

The project involved the transformation of an office space into two new houses. Having a large open plan and regular shaped space of 200 sqm, we decided to apply the same design concept to both domestic components.

Our proposal was trying to achieve two goals mainly: firstly bring natural light into the entire house by using big scale openings in the main façade. Second, to generate a flexible and adaptable layout that meets the different needs of the owners. 

To achieve these intentions we proposed a minimal intervention creating a large wooden furniture object to organize the space. A carved piece of furniture allows visual and functional connection of all the rooms in addition to house various uses such as kitchen and bathroom. This configuration helps to maximize the flexibility of the living areas whose uses can be exchanged.

Thanks to its location on the floorplan and its design in section, the piece of furniture generates a sequence of spaces with different scales and proportions plenty of natural light, and seeks to avoid the room “labeling” tendency that usually limits multiuse purposes. 

A flexible space where most of the uses and functions can be interchanged moved, or added. A house able to evolve, adapt and transform, far away from stereotypes, that provides answers to different situations and new requirements, no matter how extraordinary these are.

A contemporary scheme that allows a wide range of living alternatives just to be decided by the owner, avoiding traditional conventionalisms and hierarchies and is open to provide new scenarios in terms of domestic space.

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Architects
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Builder
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Azkayo Construcciones S.L.
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Area
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240 m².
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Dates
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2020.
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Manufacturers
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Furniture.- Ondarreta.
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Location
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Bilbao, Spain.
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Photography
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Garmendia Cordero Arquitectos is an architecture studio located in Bilbao and led by Álvaro Cordero Iturregui (ETSASS 2000) and Carlos Garmendia Fernández (ETSAB 2009).

It was founded at the end of 2015, always trying to maintain a way of working based on sincerity, coherence and respect for the context.

They have developed projects of very different characteristics, from ephemeral performances to new buildings, always with a significant percentage of interventions in existing buildings and, in each of the cases, they have tried to ensure that these three premises make up the structural line of the process.

Likewise, they believe that any way of approaching a new project must have the ultimate aim of improving the spaces on which they act, and this is how they approach each new work.

During this time, they have experimented with the relationships generated between the existing and the new architecture that is generated, trying at all times to act with the utmost respect for the context, be it material or intellectual, so that, once the particular history of each case has been analysed, they can intervene in the most personalized and targeted way possible.

They aspire, each time, for this script to end up generating projects with a clear reading where the main intentions of the idea are reflected, giving enormous importance to the function, whether through emphatic volumes, textures or through the exhaustive analysis of each conditioning factor in a global manner, in order to respond to these programmatic needs.

Their intention is always to work at all scales, whatever the size or entity of the project, they have learned to understand architecture in this way and this is how they try to reflect it in each work, taking care of the smallest detail to the largest implementation.
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Published on: October 2, 2020
Cite: "Conversion of an office into two houses. Z42 houses by Garmendia Cordero arquitectos " METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/conversion-office-two-houses-z42-houses-garmendia-cordero-arquitectos> ISSN 1139-6415
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