Design of a chameleonic house that adapts to two ways of life

If there were two key premises that make a somewhat distinguished design stand out, these would be adaptation and flexibility. This is precisely what was sought with this project carried out by the architecture studio Iker López Estudio. In this project, it has been possible to modulate a house with a chameleonic soul, which can be adapted according to the owner’s way of life and the use it will give it.

It is a reform carried out in a house of 150 square meters and which is located in the Estrella neighborhood in Madrid. The project was approached comprehensively and with one main objective: to respond through the configuration of the space to two opposite lifestyles. On the one hand, that of a single man, and on the other, that of a father of a family with four children who live with him every two weeks.

Design as a backbone

To meet the needs program, the architect explains that, from the client’s great cultural concerns (professional in the aeronautics sector and passionate about reading), the design response on which the project revolves has been born. It is a library that acts as a boundary between the individual and the family, and when the house is lived in this second stadium, it functions as a distributor of children’s rooms and as a common study area for the children, giving the importance that the client sought to the relationship between them. Something, in addition, that allows the bedrooms to be freed from the academic burden, turning them into individual shelters and plots of personal space for each one. Here, the bright tones and colors of the books, office utensils and natural wood of the Italian designer chairs bought by the owner years ago, break the glacial white of the design structure, providing dynamism and vitality.

This central library has valued a very powerful and spacious space of the house in its origin, the old hall, which was completely disused. After the reform it has become the heart of the house, the border between its two faces and it has gained in functionality and light.

For the design of this library, the circulations of the rooms that surround it have been taken into account: the children’s rooms and a bathroom, in addition to those necessary for the use of the four study places it houses. A lightweight, lightweight element has been created with laser-cut steel plates for work areas and off-hook shelves made of white micro-perforated sheet metal to gain transparency, with rods calculated to support the weight of all books.

Geometry game

The design and projection work of the library also marks a linguistic code within the project, through which the architecture studio has differentiated spaces and organized the floor plan of the house.

On the one hand, we have a very orthogonal and ordered part (the adult area that functions as a bachelor floor); and on the other, another that appears with oblique, curved and fun shapes (the family area) with elements, yes, that belong to both worlds: the library, already mentioned above, and the kitchen.

Thus, the house is distributed in four bedrooms, three bathrooms (two of them en suite), a kitchen open to the living room, and a shared central library. The three children’s bedrooms, one of them with a toilet included, and the general bathroom of the house that is isolated from the common area through whale beards (PVC strips) that thermally separate both areas and that, in addition, they provide a certain transparency allowing to see through and thus understanding the entire space.

Precisely for each bathroom a different color code and a specific geometry have been used that gives them their own identity. The main bathroom located inside the owner’s bedroom has been arranged in his favorite color, blue, and plays with straight geometries creating a regular space. The one for guests, in green, is oblique and angular where the vanishing points appear to be the protagonists and the third, the one included in one of the children’s rooms, is mustard and adapts to the original space of the house in that area.

All combine with a white base shade that makes them “breathe” and have custom-made furniture with Roca brand sanitaryware, In-wash model suspended in the main and GAP model for toilets; and the Inspire Round for the sinks.

In the main bathroom, in addition, the water area continues with the white tone of a micro-cement that makes it functional avoiding all kinds of joints. Here, the large shower has a longitudinal bench to sit or arrange utensils and, in turn, has been closed to the top, offering the owner the possibility of enjoying steam baths if he wishes.

As for the bedrooms, the bespoke design of all the wardrobes stands out. With rounded fingernails from floor to ceiling and without any type of moldings that of children’s, offering a contemporary and minimalist aesthetic; and that of the client, as a large dressing room designed based on overlapping wooden boxes of different sizes with connecting elements in darker tones, and from which some removable shelves for the storage of clothes come out. This design has been millimetrically thought so that all the client’s garments have their specific space. In addition, there is a recordable platform that allows the hidden storage of more clothes and that acts as a support or seat in the use of the dressing room.