Elcano Street in Madrid has given way to a series of residential buildings with an industrial character that coexist with others of a more conventional nature. The FRPO Rodriguez & Oriol ARCHITECTS project has 13 houses, 13 storage rooms, a garden with a swimming pool and 32 underground parking spaces.
The FRPO Rodriguez & Oriol ARCHITECTS apartment building is a compact building with two different facades: the north façade looks at a series of industrial buildings that are unclearly related to the residential buildings in the area. On the other hand, the south facade, sunny, looks at the void left by the old ships in which there is a garden and a pool and in which trees are planted.
 

Description of project by FRPO Rodriguez & Oriol ARCHITECTS

Arganzuela, Madrid

Elcano is a treeless street in the district of Arganzuela, next to Madrid city center, the Reina Sofia Museum and Atocha Station. Years ago, the area was occupied by low-rise buildings, warehouses, workshops and other secondary uses that, in recent decades, have been replaced with a series of industrial-like housing buildings lying amid more conventional ones. 

The old workshops occupied the plots entirely. The regulations, restricting the building to a 12 m depth, produces some interior free areas that are often occupied with gardens and pools, something not very common in the neighborhood that gives a kind of unique quality to these developments. 

The project is located on the second block of the street, between party walls, and occupies the maximum volume allowed by the regulations: a 22 x 12 m trapezoidal floorplan -coinciding with the boundaries of the site- with a height of about 14 m.

Cross section

The project is properly understood as a section responding to two fundamental variables: type and context.

The volume is drilled with two double and triple height gaps adjusting the maximum built surface: a car and pedestrian passage ressembling the old industrial constructions in the area, and a void in the facade that allows the natural ventilation of the garage, two floors below ground level. 

The built surface subtracted from the main facade, facing north and noisy, is used to build two-story apartments in the lower part of the building opening to the interior facade, to the southern garden. The rest of the levels are organized with three 2-3-bedroom apartments per floor, two of them connecting both facades and a third one on the interior garden. A penthouse with two additional houses tops the volume. The result: 13 apartments, 13 storage rooms, a garden with a swimming pool and 32 underground parking spaces.

Domestic space

The apartments are organized based on contemporary criteria. Continuous polished-cement floors, drywall partitions, floor-to-ceiling thresholds. Storage and wet rooms, as usual, are in the central spine of the plant. The space is fluid, connecting corridors and kitchens with living areas through large sliding doors.

Assembly, texture

This compact volume faces two very different situations. The north facade faces a tense street and a series of industrial buildings not clearly related to the residential buildings in the area. On the opposite, the south facade is sunny, and faces a garden and a pool.

The north facade is built with prefabricated reinforced concrete horizontal panels following the floor levels, among which there is a series of 90 x 220 light GRC light. Some of these panels rotate performing as shutters protecting the windows, which appear behind on the same geometrical basis. 

The south facade, on the other hand, is deep, as a balcony or a gallery. It is built through the literal juxtaposition of a gallery: sunshades, some seating space and flowerpots provide a certain domestic character. the facade is built through a series of pre-assembled metal frames incorporating both the gallery floor and the handrail, the pots and the sunshades that protect from the southern sun. 

On the ground floor, both facades get in contact through the car passage. A strip of metal cladding of the same color as the inner gallery folds inwards and forms the access, folding again to act as a basis between the street and the building.

 

 

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Architects
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FRPO Rodriguez & Oriol.
Architects.- Pablo Oriol, Fernando Rodríguez.
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Collaborators
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Fran Díaz, Ricardo González, Esther Ibáñez, Matilde Lorenzo, Almudena Navas, Julia Burón.
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Consultants
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Antonio Lorenzo, David Marcos, Pablo Urbano, Pablo Matilla, Grupo AXIOM
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Area
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2630 m²
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Date
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2015-2018
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Photography
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FRPO (2008) is an architecture office based in Madrid directed by Fernando Rodriguez and Pablo Oriol, internationally recognized with the Architectural Record Design Vanguard (New York, 2012), Europe 40 under 40 (2009) and Bauwelt Preis (Berlin, 2007) awards, among others. Their work has also received prestigious awards, such as the selection for the Architectural Review Emerging Architecture Awards (2019), the FAD Awards (2019), the Spanish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2016, Golden Lion), the nomination for the Mies van der Rohe Awards (2015), the IX and XII Spanish Biennials of Architecture and Urbanism (2007 and 2013), or the V and IX Ibero-American Biennials of Architecture and Urbanism (2006 and 2014).

FRPO’s work has been widely published, and its proposals have been disseminated through articles, lectures, and frequent exhibitions, both nationally and internationally.

Trained as architects at the ETSAM in Madrid, at the IIT in Chicago and the TU Berlin, Pablo Oriol and Fernando Rodriguez are professors in the Department of Architectural Design at the ETSAM UPM, as well as regular guests at various national and foreign universities.

Fernando Rodríguez holds a PhD in Architecture since 2015. He studied architecture at UPM ETSAM in Madrid and at the Technische Universität Berlin, between 1995 and 2003. He has collaborated in MVRDV and has been Invited Critic with Kees Christiaanse at the TU Berlin. He worked as a project architect for Abalos & Herreros in 2004. He is a lecturer at the Architectural Design Department of UPM ETSAM and at the IE University.

Pablo Oriol studied architecture at UPM ETSAM and the IIT College of Architecture in Chicago, between 1995 and 2005. He was Cultural Activities Curator for the General Department of Architecture of the Ministry of Public Works for the ETSAM and the Cervantes Institute between 1999 and 2002. He was part of the redaction team of the magazine Arquitectura Viva in 2006. He is PhD candidate and lecturer at the Architectural Design Department of UPM ETSAM and at the IE University.

In 2005 Fernando Rodriguez and Pablo Oriol were founding partners of Nolaster Oficina de Arquitectura, where they developed their professional activity until 2007. In 2008 they established FRPO as a natural evolution of their previous professional experiences.
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Pablo Oriol (Madrid 1977) Architect / Partner. He studied architecture at the Madrid Polytechnic ETSAM and at the Architecture College of the Illinois Institute of Technology of Chicago, between 1995 and 2005. He was Cultural Activities Curator for the General Department of Architecture of the Ministry of Public Works for the ETSAM and for the Cervantes Institute between 1999 and 2002. He is a PhD candidate at the Madrid Polytechnic ETSAM. He is Associate Professor at the Architectural Design Department of the Madrid Polytechnic ETSAM and at the IE School of Architecture.

In 2005 they become founder-associates with  of Fernando Rodríguez Nolaster Oficina de Arquitectura, where they have developed their professional activity until 2007. In 2007 Pablo Oriol and Fernando Rodríguez establish FRPO, as a natural evolution of the work done until the date within Nolaster.

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Fernando Rodríguez (Albacete 1977) Architect / Partner. He studied architecture at the Madrid Polytechnic ETSAM and at the Technische Universität Berlin, between 1995 and 2003. In 2002 he has collaborated in MVRDV (Rotterdam) and has been Invited Critic with Kees Christiaanse at the TU Berlin. He has worked as projects architect for Abalos & Herrerros (Madrid) in 2004. He is a PhD candidate at the Madrid Polytechnic ETSAM. He is Associate Professor at the Architectural Design Department of the Madrid Polytechnic ETSAM and at the IE School of Architecture.

In 2005 they become founder-associates of Nolaster Oficina de Arquitectura, where they have developed their professional activity until 2007. In 2007 Fernando Rodríguez and Pablo Oriol establish FRPO, as a natural evolution of the work done until the date within Nolaster.

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Published on: June 4, 2019
Cite: "Housing in Elcano Street by FRPO Rodriguez & Oriol ARCHITECTS" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/housing-elcano-street-frpo-rodriguez-oriol-architects> ISSN 1139-6415
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