Madrigal 16 Residential Complex is located in the northeast of Madrid in the exclusive Puerta de Hierro colony. The project includes four residential blocks with two apartments in the ground floor, a first floor apartment and two duplex penthouses. These residences offer large spaces, balconies, a private swimming pool and gardens designed to ensure privacy in all rooms.
Architizer chatted with Alejandro Bueso-Inchausti, Pablo Rein and Edgar Bueso-Inchausti, architects and partners at Bueso-Inchausti & Rein Arquitectos to learn more about this project.
Architizer: Please summarize the project brief and creative vision behind your project.
Alejandro Bueso-Inchausti, Pablo Rein and Edgar Bueso-Inchausti: Madrigal 16 is a project that owes large part of its virtues to the limitations that existed in its origin.
A very rigid urban planning regulation together with an existing structure lead the project on to focusing on the development of tremendously efficient floor plans and on the search for a facade, which without being able to provide it with the usual movement characteristic of the firm, reflects the quality and uniqueness of the houses contained in that 20mx20m box.
Geometry, composition and the addition of layers on the façade together with few singular features, bring movement to a completely plane façade.
© Bueso-Inchausti & Rein Arquitectos
What inspired the initial concept for your design?
The project started as all projects do: all the determining factors, geometric, functional, environmental, economic, regulatory, etc., are studied to induce your best possible response. In this case the challenge of creating a very attractive object with the conditioning of an existing structure and the limitations of the coding lead the firm to design a façade with lots of geometry, composition and movement through the overlapping of façade layers.
© Bueso-Inchausti & Rein Arquitectos
What do you believe is the most unique or ‘standout’ component of the project?
The most unique and standout component is the façade with lots of geometry, composition and movement through the overlapping of façade layers.
What was the greatest design challenge you faced during the project, and how did you navigate it?
The challenge of creating a very attractive object with the conditioning of an existing structure and the limitations of the coding, was what made it a different and challenging project. There was a lot of work on the façades, both on its geometry and material research and it was trough composition, few architectural features such as clotheslines and enclosed balconies and the overlapping of façade layers that we ended with such a successful result.
© Bueso-Inchausti & Rein Arquitectos
What drove the selection of materials used in the project?
The quality and better integration of homes with their natural environment. Among the materials used are natural limestone pavements, oak wood flooring and custom-made carpentry, exterior aluminum frames with minimalist profiles and large sliding panels. On the outside, a double façade has been designed with wooden panels and aluminum slats, bush-hammered marble cladding and natural granite exterior flooring.
What is your favorite detail in the project and why?
If I had to highlight a characteristic of our studio, it is the pursuit of excellence and attention to detail. All details are equally important in the development of a project and that is why it is difficult to highlight one above the rest.
© Bueso-Inchausti & Rein Arquitectos
How important was sustainability as a design criteria as you worked on this project?
Efficiency and sustainability have always been fundamental in good architecture and have always been a very important factor since the first projects of the firm in the 80’s.
Nowadays there is a movement that floods everything, and it is thought that before they were aspects that were not taken care of or were not addressed with due intensity. It is not true, a good project cannot be done without it being efficient in the broadest sense of the term: thermally efficient, both passively and actively, constructively efficient, using techniques and materials appropriate to the geographical, social, cultural environment, etc. And it must be sustainable, which means that it is sustainable over time, for what must be a useful space for an indefinite time, materially durable and economically viable.
© Bueso-Inchausti & Rein Arquitectos
In what ways did you collaborate with others, and how did that add value to the project?
The Developer, and the different subcontractors from its team have a very important role on the success of a project.
With regards to the design team, I remember hearing from Pablo Rein some time ago, that “architects are collective artists, and that though art and architecture has always been associated with creativity and the creative process with individuality, the collaboration of all architects on the team brings discussion and debate from which projects come out enriched”.
On the development of a project, different professionals work together, they obviously have to have enough affinity in their “plastic emotions”, otherwise they would not be able to do it, but this said, Sacha and Pablo, leading Partners of the firm always let the team bring their ideas to debate and this project has not been an exception.
How have your clients responded to the finished project?
In this case, the developer blindly trusted our firm and criteria, and that always is a key feature on bringing an excellent project together.
How do you believe this project represents you or your firm as a whole?
It represents our work philosophy: the pursuit of excellence.
© Bueso-Inchausti & Rein Arquitectos
Please list any team members you’d like to include in the credits.
Collaborating Architects: Fabricio Cordido, Gonzalo Nieto, Vanessa Poncio, María Zuazo, Antonio García, Isabel Jaureguizar (architects) and Carmen Jorge (draftsman); Quantity surveyors: Antonio Gil Melero; Structures Engineering: Buin Ingenieros Installations Engineering: Zetus