Casa Torre in Madrid / Carolina González Vives

Curated by Clara Ott

Architects: Carolina González Vives
Area: 6458 ft²
Year: 2018
Photographs: Imagen Subliminal (Miguel de Guzmán + Rocío Romero), Javier Bravo
Manufacturers: AutoDesk, Cosentino, Finsa, Placo, Vaillant, Adobe Systems Incorporated, Ceràmica Cumella
Lead Architect: Carolina González Vives

Text description provided by the architects. The construction of this house occupies a land near the Manzanares river basin. This small building is inserted into the landscape corridor that runs through the metropolitan area from the Madrid highlands, close to the great mass of vegetation of Ciudad Universitaria and the intersection with the first city beltway M30, which occupies the historic riverbed La Veguilla.

It arises with a clear vertical will, more uncomfortable for a domestic program, but interesting for an observatory-turret. We look for two complementary relationships with the landscape: tangible contact with the ground, so primitive, and visual domination, really powerful from the upper platform. And a simple and solid exterior volume: a single faceted prism with soft angles, giving a dynamic, sequential image.

This approach, reducing floor occupancy, results in a sloping garden wider than expected, configured as a tiered theater that begins inside the house, where public events of all kinds have already been held.

The ground floor has three large legs, the glass enclosures slide and disappear and the green of the landscape enters and colors all the surfaces, forming a large exterior canopy over the terraces. The ambition is to continue interiors and exteriors, to erase the limits.

A coating of glazed ceramic pieces forms an insulating and waterproof coat that qualifies the main facade. With a flat inner face and a concave outer face with a certain volume, their sequence gives rise to an undulating texture activated by the movement of the sun, forming changing shadows throughout the day.

The outline of the plant is quite adapted to that of the plot, fitting the building in the upper part. Internally it is organized into two converging blocks, leaving a void between them that connects the different levels, generating a vertical air draft that facilitates the natural cooling of the house.

The bedrooms, however, adopt a smooth geometry, without edges, 33white and neutral spaces, where the gray color is used to re-draw the own shadows. These three rounds are separated from each other by the wet rooms, finished with brightly colored tiles, which give these small spaces a clear identity within the complex.

The carving of the floor is also important regarding the water and energy performance. The terraces reduce the speed of the runoff and increase wáter absortion in the thickness of the soil.

Pavements and channels lead the water to two storage tanks, that include on-site treatment systems for reuse.