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Architects: TallerDE2 Arquitectos
- Year: 2014
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Photographs:Miguel de Guzmán
Text description provided by the architects. Residence for a Metropolitan Single
'The POP-UP House' is a comprehensive intervention in a house in a Madrid residential building from the mid-twentieth century to a newly emancipated user.
'The POP-UP House' is an experiment that investigates the intersection of two situations: on one hand, it is an exploration of a sociological phenomenon linked to the growing number of single-person households in the metropolis -called "single phenomenon" (1); and on the other, it is the test of the accomplice infiltration- because it is individual and interactive -of thin furniture of domestic infrastructure (2).
1. Single Phenomenon
One of the global phenomena linked to more developed countries is that of single-person households for "single" users. Apart from the massive phenomenon of shared houses, internet and social networks have recently favored a domestic alternative that shows that to "live alone amounts to no longer be alone"; living alone is a new model powered by the increase in life expectancy, the emancipation of women and the number of young professionals who do not want to share.
In countries like Germany, France, UK and Japan around 40% of homes are occupied by a single person. In the US there are 30 million "singles". It is surprising that in Spain, despite the recent economic crisis, such households are increasing. 'The POP-UP House' does not attempt to make an optimal domestic protocol phenomenon, but seeks to test a response that explores the potential of this reality.
2. Building Thin Furniture of Domestic Infrastructure
In a first action, we delete the existing that is expendable, the partitions linked to an obsolete domesticity, oblivious to the new user. The structure remains, and the obsessions of a new inhabitant.
We define the infrastructural units of a single person house like the specialized bags of Toland Grinnell, functional elements which when opened will occupy the space needed to be inhabited. The facilities associated with a traditional room become independent and dispersed, offering new domestic opportunities: we no longer speak of a bathroom, but a shower, a sink, a toilet, a tap, mirror, etc. With these individual components we open a catalog of possibilities; here, the client interacts when he chooses, discards and redefines. We assemble these 54 units in an infrastructural element -more than aesthetic- that is dense and operational. By infiltrating this individual and interactive supplement to the house, it tangles forming a maze.
This unifying element does not move, it unfolds. It is anchored to the building, leaving a generic space around it-laboratory of experiences, relationships, tolerances, overlays, multiplicities. This space is activated when the infrastructural furniture is used. When it is opened and closed, deployed and collapsed, slid and swung, the house is restructured, it expands, becomes fragmented, is connected, is isolated. This room does not contain a closet, the closet contains a bedroom.
The furniture is thin. The thinning strategy focuses on the elements that are usually unusable: the partitions between rooms, building services, vertical chutes, etc. It takes advantage of the acoustic, insulation, partition and permeable capabilities of the elements. In the previous conventional house, just over 50% of the floor area was intended for available space, corseted in rooms; with the new configuration, the user has 77% of the floor space to appropriate freely.
This infrastructure is built with a single economic and versatile material, oriented strand panel. While the exterior is uniform with a unique image, the interior furniture is unique, tiles and paper provide the color and design of elegant classic suitcase linings.
