Architecture firm gon has partnered with Ana Torres to transform a compartmentalized apartment with 21-meters long floor plan into a lit up and flowing house for a bachelor person in the Malasaña district.

Malasaña is one of the historic neighborhoods of Madrid that brings together the most modern and underground residents of the city. It is located in the Centro district. It is a vibrant neighborhood and full of lively bars and clubs full of young people, so this makes it a neighborhood where many single people live.
The Sequence House designed by gon and Ana Torres is located on the third floor of an existing building. They laid down new topologic and programmatical relations that gives rise to the "construction of scenographies of the habitat linked to the basic actions".


Sequence House by gon and Ana Torres. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.


They attempt to propose a succession of connecting rooms compatible with the limitations of the existing walls characteristic of the architecture of the buildings in Madrid.


Sequence House by gon and Ana Torres. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.

gon creates a series of sliding walls located at the main junction points that give the possibility to open and close the generated spaces, providing them with openness and fluidity.

Sequence House by gon Architects and Ana Torres. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
 

Project description by gon

The traditional structure of Madrid's flats -a system of load-bearing walls parallel to the facade enclosing a set of rooms of different sizes that revolve around interior courtyards and are both isolated and connected by a corridor- is the starting point for this house for a single person located on a third floor of an apartment building in the Malasaña district.

The most singular physical and measurable characteristic of the flat is its length: from one end of the house to the other there are 21 linear meters that give the clue to the intervention to be carried out. The aim is to enhance this condition, which has now become a desire, with the floor plan of the project being the result of a complete emptying of the house that organizes the domestic space in a unique atmosphere that is compatible with the spatial strategy of the walls of the initial state. In other words, the pre-existing system of contiguous rooms is re-established only that, in this second life, they are projected with a greater dimension and connected to each other, ensuring that the unity and continuity between the parts is recovered.

Consequently, new topological and programmatic relationships result in a free and fluid domestic space, liquid, where research is carried out on the concept of ‘stay’ through the construction of scenographies of the habitat linked to the basic actions of cooking, sleeping, resting, working, relating and cleaning and caring for the body. The corners of the rooms, formerly cul de sacs, are understood as areas of opportunity to experiment through visual elements that turn the space into a curve and constitute, through the use of colour and lighting, in a symbolic way, the place where an action takes place.

These spaces shape a domestic scenic production that, on a continuous wooden floor, besides understanding and enhancing the dwelling as a living place, also allows the house to be explained as a succession of contemporary narratives that articulate the transversal and longitudinal routes, public and private, that can be constantly reconfigured according to the needs of Carlos, its owner, facilitating, against the exclusive domestic functionalism, the dream of living.

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Architects
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Gon. Architets.- Gonzalo Pardo and Ana Torres.
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Collaborators
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Alejandro Sánchez, Carlos Barranco and Clara Dios.
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Builder
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Serviteco Obras S.L.
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Area
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124m²
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Dates
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Completion.- 2020.
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Manufacturers
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Carpentry.- Alma Ebanistería s.l. Flooring.- delSer s.a. Kitchen.- Barronkress s.l. Lighting.- Oliva Iluminación s.a. Furniture.- HAY, ARKOSLIGHT, IKEA and VITRA (Kitchen). Fritz Hansen, METALARC, VITRA, SANTA & COLE and Carme Balada (Dining room). SOFT LINE (Dark room). MOBLES 114, SANTA & COLE, FLOS, MENU, VICCARBE, VITRA, IKEA and HABITAT (Living room). WEBER & DUCRÉ (Corridor). FERRÉS, FLOS, SANTA & COLE and HAY (Main bathroom). Marset (Guest bathroom). ARTEMIDE (Bedroom). ARKOSLIGHT (Dressing room). WEBER & DUCRÉ and HABITAT (Terrace).
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Photography
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gon is a Madrid-based architecture and design office headed by Gonzalo Pardo since 2014. His practice focuses on research and development of unique architectural projects of different scales ranging from urban planning to buildings to interior construction.

The common denominator of his works is a playful, experimental, critical and optimistic view of the contemporary. In a constant dialogue based on observation and details, their interest focuses on the creative processes of architectural design and construction, as well as the role of mediation and communication of architecture as fundamental vehicles for the transformation of the world into a more sustainable, dignified and free place.

Gonzalo Pardo has been an architect from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid  (ETSAM) since 2007, and a Doctor of Architecture since 2016. His thesis "Cuerpo y Casa: Hacia el espacio doméstico contemporáneo desde las transformaciones de la cocina y del cuarto de baño en Occidente" obtained the outstanding Cum Laude rating, and received for it the 2016-2017 Extraordinary Doctoral Thesis Award and an honorable mention in the XI call for the Arquia Foundation Thesis Contest.

Since 2007 he teaches as a visiting professor at the Instituto Europeo de Diseño (IED), in Madrid; the Illiois Institute of Technology (IIT), in Chicago, United States; Lund University, in Sweden, and the Master in Collective Housing (MCH), in Madrid. He has been a professor in the Master in Architectural Communication (MaCA) and in the Master in Advanced Projects (MPAA) of the Department of Architectural Projects at ETSAM. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Architectural Projects at ETSAM.

He has been deputy curator of the Spanish pavilion at the 16th Venice Biennale, and since 2000 he has obtained 41 national and international awards, including the first prize for the remodeling of the AZCA block in Madrid in 2007; the second prizes in the international Skyscraper competitions, in New York, and Velux, in Denmark, in 2007; COAM award in 2014 for the Paréntesis curator cycle, honorable mention in the Europan 14 competition at the Barcelona location in 2017 and finalist in the FAD Awards for Architecture and Design 2020.
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Published on: May 17, 2020
Cite: "Scenographies of living for a bachelor in Madrid. Sequence House by Gon Architects" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/scenographies-living-a-bachelor-madrid-sequence-house-gon-architects> ISSN 1139-6415
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