The proposal identifies two objectives set by the client, clearly differentiating the private and public areas of the home and achieving greater openness of the spaces. The project eliminates hallways and unifies spaces, the most characteristic being a large multifunctional white room.
The private area has two very colourful bedrooms filtered by the "cloud", accessed through two large curved doors 3 meters high that give way respectively to two toilets, which are also characterized by intense coloured surfaces made in glass mosaic of 2.5 x 2.5 cm pieces.
Casa Nube by Studio Animal. Photograph by José Hevia.
Project description by Studio Animal
Casa Nube is a renovation of a home in Colonia Niño Jesús, next to Retiro Park in Madrid. The original distribution presented the typical characteristics of the homes of the time: several small rooms, a service area connected to a kitchen isolated from the rest of the house, small bathrooms and narrow hallways. In short, a medium-sized, highly compartmentalized space.
The main objective of the project is to achieve an open space that makes the most of both the surface area and the potential climatic and lighting conditions of the property. It also pursues the construction of an intimate space highly differentiated from our client's public sphere.
To achieve this, a strategy was proposed in which the corridors completely disappear. On the one hand, a large space is proposed that houses all the public uses of the house and organizes them in a single white and bright room: living room, dining room, kitchen, reading...
This also allows cross ventilation in that space and takes advantage of natural lighting from the façade and community patio, considerably improving the comfort conditions of this space. Adjacent to this public area appears the private pillbox, composed of two twin and symmetrical bedrooms, one facing the main façade and the other facing the interior patio. Unlike the neutral and white public space, each of the bedrooms is completely bathed in a color chosen by its inhabitants.
Casa Nube by Studio Animal. Photograph by José Hevia.
Between both spaces, public and private, an elongated and narrow tablet is proposed that acts as a filter and houses the wet areas of the house. As if it were a ritual, this humid 'cloud' is crossed to move from the most private spectrum to the public area. One wakes up in the morning in the privacy of it, goes through the cloud to clean up and prepares for the day that begins and goes out into public life.
This 'cloud' is elevated concerning the ground level of the home to allow the passage of the facilities to the main downspout, but also to reinforce the transition from the public space, open and white, with a free height of 3 meters, to the private space, coloured and collected. Two large curved doors give way to these rooms. All the interior surfaces of this "filter space" are as if they were a single skin.
They are finished in a glass mosaic of 2.5 x 2.5 cm pieces. installed on the curved walls using preformed meshes, and on the floor manually, piece by piece aligned with the curve where it meets the walls in concentric circles.
