Duplex Building at Campo del Príncipe

Description

The lack of a specific dimensional program for this project, together with the fact that the client considered the end user of the spaces to be determined -that is, the person who is to inhabit the house to be designed, was yet anonymous, led us to search for multiple solutions and different ways of interpreting and inhabiting the house. We endeavoured to create an interrelation between the house and the city. The spaces were conceived of as elements complementing the urban setting, with the understanding that the person who would be living in them would do so without identifying himself with them without ownership. The home is focused towards the city from which it comes. The spaces inside the house open directly onto the perspective offered by the city in the distance, merging with a closer, more mediating glimpse of the historical weave of the area in which the house is situated. As regards urban planning regulations, the project analyses and recognizes as its own limitations others derived from a detailed analysis, such as the various slopes present in the lot, the narrowing of the road, the varying heights of surrounding buildings, etc. As far as a non-existent typology or model goes, the study of volume and the ratio between solid and empty space are decisive elements in this project, which derives from a desire to identify what we understand as key elements in an area which at the present moment offers very different architectural solutions as far as form and scale are concerned. The design includes an architecture which interacts with the environment, and which is diverse in scale, form and typology. The building, while maintaining its clear individuality, endeavours to embrace the urban fabric within its structure and present it to the city. Its titration is more a result of a taut understanding of the urban sequence than of the formal composition of its various pieces in relation to the constructed volume. The relation of the building with the city is more intense if we consider its position overlooking the dominant plane, which likewise transforms it into an object which attempts to export not only its singularity as a contemporary piece inserted into the historical centre, but also the idea of an architecture which is committed to a process of formal evolution over time. (Description provided by the architect)