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A Guy, a Bulldog, an Edible Garden, and the Home they Share
A Guy, a Bulldog, an Edible Garden, and the Home they Share
Madrid, Spain
Project Featured on Oct 13, 2019
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Other Projects by Husos Architects
A Guy, a Bulldog, an Edible Garden, and the Home they Share
Madrid, Spain
Project Featured on Oct 13, 2019
Text by Camilo García and Diego Barajas (Husos architects) ///
"A GUY, A BULLDOG, AN EDIBLE GARDEN, AND THE HOME THEY SHARE":
This is a small refurbished house, 46m2 in size, in a modern variation on the traditional Spanish corrala – a block of flats whose access corridors look out over a shared interior courtyard – in the Acacias neighbourhood of Madrid. It began as a commission from a young doctor who works in Casualty, in order to cater to his needs and those of his bulldog.
At the same time, however, this is part of a number of sociobioclimatic explorations we have been carrying out in various different housing projects, in the sense that they deal with the climate in environmental terms as well as in terms of the social climates that are generated through architecture.
These explorations are designed to increase the dwelling’s possibilities. On the one hand, there are possibilities that are largely quantitative: for example giving it the flexibility of a multiplicity of uses, and minimizing energy consumption. On the other hand, there are those that are mainly qualitative: as a place that enables unexpected transformative situations to take place, as a device in which other daily social and environmental activities are recognised; and as a scenario in which new narratives of bodies in the domestic sphere can emerge. ///
MICROREALITIES:
During the design process, we analysed several specific characteristics of the dwelling to be refurbished, as well as the daily activities of these two flatmates. The original layout of the apartment had a double east-west orientation, but the excessive compartmentalisation of the spaces obstructed the cross-ventilation in the bedrooms, which meant that the west-facing spaces were excessively hot in summer. Both the owner of the apartment and his dog are very sensitive to the heat, which is extreme in July and August in Madrid – something that the design of the new dwelling had to take into account. Bulldogs in general are delicate animals, being sensitive to high temperatures and requiring special care. Besides, this dog in particular is especially fragile as he is a rescue dog, who narrowly escaped being killed at birth as his health did not meet the standards of commercial selection.
For this commission, the size of the bedroom wasn’t important, but the living room needed to be large enough to stretch out and watch TV series in, to write up medical reports in, or to receive friends or more intimate companions. In the case of occasional encounters the living room is often a central place of the house in the gay sexual culture in Madrid, while frequently reserving the bedroom for closer relations.(1) Despite the small size of the apartment, the new home needed to allow the owner of the apartment to invite friends to stay over without having to open out a sofabed, which would take up a lot of space in the living room.
We began working bit by bit on these and other similar microrealities of the apartment’s occupants, like for example the important problem of owner´s sleep pattern – a frequent issue among doctors working in hospital emergency rooms. To recover from night shifts, it’s important to take naps during the day, as the circadian rhythms are disrupted. We realised that a siesta space should be an important feature of the design; it would preferably be an alternative to his usual bed, which would be reserved as a place to sleep at night. ///
SOCIOBIOCLIMATIC ACTIONS:
This project was based on various actions. The interior space has been redistributed to create an ample living area, open on both east and west sides of the building, which allows air to circulate during the hot summer months, at the same time as turning the west facade into a kind of climatic cushion for the dwelling. A vertical vegetable garden has been designed on this side, taking advantage of a balcony that gives onto the central courtyard of the apartment block, which is visible from the corrala and protected on the inside by a set of two curtains, one made of transparent plastic, creating a greenhouse effect in winter, and another made of a porous textile that provides shade in summer. The incorporation of a domestic vegetable garden, designed in close collaboration with horticulture and irrigation system consultants and with the client, complements the doctor´s other experiences with sustainable food-growing as a member of responsible consumption groups.
Distributed within a 1.5m wide strip along the south side are the bedroom, a dressing room, a storeroom, and a multiuse capsule that works as a space to receive guests who might stay overnight or wish to rest alone, as a place to take naps that is different to the bed, or as a place to receive visits while lying down. The uses of the living room are thus extended and transformed.
This capsule-periscope is the ideal place to read, since it allows the reader to sit with their back to the window and simultaneously enjoy the view of the acacia trees on the street, as well as the sky, via an interplay of mirrors. By closing the sliding door, the space inside becomes private, and from the outside the door works as a great video projection screen. A series of cotton hemispheres serve as islands for the bulldog to rest on inside the dwelling that are at once soft and refreshing. These are fixed to the floor with suction cups, which enables his master to choose and change their placement. ///
SOCIALISATIONS IN THE CORRALA THROUGH INTERIOR DESIGN:
The dwelling is located in a building that is a kind of modern corrala, built in the 1960s. The homes inside this apartment block are accessed by way of an open-sided gallery that enables neighbours to interact with one another, for instance when they meet while hanging out laundry – a very widespread custom in Madrid, as in other places in Spain. However, in this case, the central courtyard is occupied by commercial premises, which undermines the communal nature of this type of building. In traditional corralas, the courtyard is a very important space for social exchange.
The tomatoes, herbs, and other species planted in the new domestic vegetable garden will provide an excess of produce that the owner of the apartment will be unable to eat on his own, giving him the option of sharing it with others – whether it be neighbours in the building, work colleagues, or loved ones. In this way, the vegetable garden supplies not only food, but also the potential for extending the relational capacities of the dwelling, questioning the widespread idea of the modern apartment as an isolated residential nucleus. The dwelling explores the social nature of Madrid’s traditional corralas through this surplus of food, as well as by way of a curtain at the entrance that allows for different degrees of contact with the outer corridor – principally in summer, since the door can be left open and the curtain pulled back; by contrast, in winter, the curtain can be drawn and thus reinforce the privacy of the home, as well as providing sound and heat insulation. ///
WATER RECYCLING MICROLANDSCAPES BETWEEN SHOWER AND VEGETABLE GARDEN:
Part of the design is a watering system that makes use of the grey water from the shower; this could also serve as a replicable prototype that responds to the critical scarcity of water in a dry region like Madrid on a small scale.(2) Water is temporarily stored and then filtered to irrigate and maintain the plants which, as well as providing food, works as part of the thermal control solution to keep the interior cool – so much so that it was not necessary to install any mechanical cooling system such as air conditioning, even for the hottest months of the year. ///
MATERIAL AND COLOUR POLICIES:
The walls, storage units, and floors are made of a combination of plywood boards and pine wood pieces made in a carpentry workshop and assembled on-site. We avoided plastering the walls, opting instead for a solution with breathable mortars in the bathroom, walls, and ceilings. In contrast with the antiseptic, supposedly neutral, white ambience of hospital wards where most doctors work, the atmosphere of the new dwelling is cosy and changeable, according to the lighting that the owner of the apartment decides upon, and according to the time of day. Walls and floors are warm colours like orange, cream, and the natural colours of the pine and birch plywood, with a few details in pink and purple that reinforce the non-heteronormative nature of this home space.(3) We aimed to create a microlandscape with the tubes and filters running from the shower to the vegetable garden, allowing the flow of water to be seen in a way that attempts to be didactic, and understanding it as an assemblage of possible new ‘objects of desire’ for a hypothetical new, sustainable era.(4)
This home is the spatial translation of this pair of flatmates’ different needs and specific wishes, but we believe that it also opens up the possibility of a new typological configuration and of the implementation of multiple strategies for many other, very different social microrealities and forms of home in a small living space. ///
FOOTNOTES:
(1) In addition to personal life experiences a systematic research on the matter was carried out through several short interviews in Madrid in 2018.
(2) According to the Spanish Ministry of the Environment in an official report of 2016 quoted by Eldiario.es, over the course of this century 80% of Spain will be at risk of desertification and large cities like Madrid put an enormous pressure on regional water sources. See the article «El 80% de España, en riesgo de convertirse en desierto este siglo por el cambio climático» in Eldiario.es, March 20th of 2019. [Website visited on March 25th of 2019].
In Madrid, housing is responsible for 70% of water consumption. Official data from the Government of Madrid. ‹https://www.madrid.es/portales/munimadrid/es/Inicio/El-Ayuntamiento/Estadistica/Areas-de-informacion-estadistica/Territorio-climatologia-y-medio-ambiente/Medio-ambiente/Agua/?vgnextfmt=default&vgnextoid=a33703e5c6f59210VgnVCM2000000c205a0aRCRD&vgnextchannel=bb5cfbc78432a210VgnVCM1000000b205a0aRCRD› [Website visited on February 10th of 2019], based on statistical information from the Canal de Isabel II. (Madrid, water Company).
(3) This project continues an inquiry that briefly started in 2006 by Husos on non-heteronormative spatialities in Madrid. At that time it was focused on the Gay Bears Urbanisms. A case study was published in Diego Barajas, «Incubadora Social Público-privada en la sala “De nombre público” en Madrid» Nekane Aramburu (editor), Un lugar bajo el sol, Buenos Aires, editorial CCEBA, 2006, pg. 114,115. ‹http://nuevamuseologia.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/unlugarbajoelsol.pdf› [Website visited on April 1st of 2019]. An early reference was the work by Jan Kapsemberg into gay urban landscapes. See. Bart Lootsma, «Erotic Manouvers» en Hunch Magazine No. 2, The Berlage Institute, 2000.
(4) During the development of this prototype, consultations with a clinical laboratory and microbiologists at a Hospital in Madrid were conducted thanks to collaboration on this matter with the owner of the apartment and his professional relation with the medical network in the city. The purpose was to assess health related risks of reusing water from the shower for irrigating a vegetable garden for food production. The specialists’ concluded that this practice was harm free, both for the plants and for humans consuming them, prescribing the use of biodegradable body soap. This prototype is part of a series of projects carried out by Husos on the issue of sustainable water irrigation systems in buildings. They first started in 2004 while developing the «Host and Nectar Garden Building», and continued later in the project for a «Rural Productive Refuge in La Calera» in 2013 and in 2014 with the «Ecosocial Campus Project» published in Summa+ No 145, Buenos Aires, 2015. A very early reference of a water recycling landscape was presented in the conceptual installation «Rolling House», by the Office of Political Innovation in Construmat 2009. On the importance of making evident the use and management of resources through making the related infrastructures visible, see also the theoretical and practical work developed by the architecture office elii. ///
CREDITS:
Architects: Husos, (Camilo García and Diego Barajas with the collaboration of: Francesca Beltrame, Agustina Zaratiegui, Álvaro Heredia, Giulia Poma, Estefania Roiko and Wiktoria Stepien).
Construction: Husos (general coordination), Verticales Formé (carpentry), Atipical (building, installations, etc.).
Horticulture and irrigation system consultants: Nuria Preciado (agronomist), Antonio Gámiz (agronomist), César Nunes, Julián Pérez, Chema Blanco.
laboratory medical assistance: Jaime A.
Structural consulting: Mecanismo.
Measurements and budgeting: José Pérez.
Photos: José Hevia.
Dates:
Project: 2017
Construction: 2018
Location:
Arganzuela, Madrid.
"A GUY, A BULLDOG, AN EDIBLE GARDEN, AND THE HOME THEY SHARE":
This is a small refurbished house, 46m2 in size, in a modern variation on the traditional Spanish corrala – a block of flats whose access corridors look out over a shared interior courtyard – in the Acacias neighbourhood of Madrid. It began as a commission from a young doctor who works in Casualty, in order to cater to his needs and those of his bulldog.
At the same time, however, this is part of a number of sociobioclimatic explorations we have been carrying out in various different housing projects, in the sense that they deal with the climate in environmental terms as well as in terms of the social climates that are generated through architecture.
These explorations are designed to increase the dwelling’s possibilities. On the one hand, there are possibilities that are largely quantitative: for example giving it the flexibility of a multiplicity of uses, and minimizing energy consumption. On the other hand, there are those that are mainly qualitative: as a place that enables unexpected transformative situations to take place, as a device in which other daily social and environmental activities are recognised; and as a scenario in which new narratives of bodies in the domestic sphere can emerge. ///
MICROREALITIES:
During the design process, we analysed several specific characteristics of the dwelling to be refurbished, as well as the daily activities of these two flatmates. The original layout of the apartment had a double east-west orientation, but the excessive compartmentalisation of the spaces obstructed the cross-ventilation in the bedrooms, which meant that the west-facing spaces were excessively hot in summer. Both the owner of the apartment and his dog are very sensitive to the heat, which is extreme in July and August in Madrid – something that the design of the new dwelling had to take into account. Bulldogs in general are delicate animals, being sensitive to high temperatures and requiring special care. Besides, this dog in particular is especially fragile as he is a rescue dog, who narrowly escaped being killed at birth as his health did not meet the standards of commercial selection.
For this commission, the size of the bedroom wasn’t important, but the living room needed to be large enough to stretch out and watch TV series in, to write up medical reports in, or to receive friends or more intimate companions. In the case of occasional encounters the living room is often a central place of the house in the gay sexual culture in Madrid, while frequently reserving the bedroom for closer relations.(1) Despite the small size of the apartment, the new home needed to allow the owner of the apartment to invite friends to stay over without having to open out a sofabed, which would take up a lot of space in the living room.
We began working bit by bit on these and other similar microrealities of the apartment’s occupants, like for example the important problem of owner´s sleep pattern – a frequent issue among doctors working in hospital emergency rooms. To recover from night shifts, it’s important to take naps during the day, as the circadian rhythms are disrupted. We realised that a siesta space should be an important feature of the design; it would preferably be an alternative to his usual bed, which would be reserved as a place to sleep at night. ///
SOCIOBIOCLIMATIC ACTIONS:
This project was based on various actions. The interior space has been redistributed to create an ample living area, open on both east and west sides of the building, which allows air to circulate during the hot summer months, at the same time as turning the west facade into a kind of climatic cushion for the dwelling. A vertical vegetable garden has been designed on this side, taking advantage of a balcony that gives onto the central courtyard of the apartment block, which is visible from the corrala and protected on the inside by a set of two curtains, one made of transparent plastic, creating a greenhouse effect in winter, and another made of a porous textile that provides shade in summer. The incorporation of a domestic vegetable garden, designed in close collaboration with horticulture and irrigation system consultants and with the client, complements the doctor´s other experiences with sustainable food-growing as a member of responsible consumption groups.
Distributed within a 1.5m wide strip along the south side are the bedroom, a dressing room, a storeroom, and a multiuse capsule that works as a space to receive guests who might stay overnight or wish to rest alone, as a place to take naps that is different to the bed, or as a place to receive visits while lying down. The uses of the living room are thus extended and transformed.
This capsule-periscope is the ideal place to read, since it allows the reader to sit with their back to the window and simultaneously enjoy the view of the acacia trees on the street, as well as the sky, via an interplay of mirrors. By closing the sliding door, the space inside becomes private, and from the outside the door works as a great video projection screen. A series of cotton hemispheres serve as islands for the bulldog to rest on inside the dwelling that are at once soft and refreshing. These are fixed to the floor with suction cups, which enables his master to choose and change their placement. ///
SOCIALISATIONS IN THE CORRALA THROUGH INTERIOR DESIGN:
The dwelling is located in a building that is a kind of modern corrala, built in the 1960s. The homes inside this apartment block are accessed by way of an open-sided gallery that enables neighbours to interact with one another, for instance when they meet while hanging out laundry – a very widespread custom in Madrid, as in other places in Spain. However, in this case, the central courtyard is occupied by commercial premises, which undermines the communal nature of this type of building. In traditional corralas, the courtyard is a very important space for social exchange.
The tomatoes, herbs, and other species planted in the new domestic vegetable garden will provide an excess of produce that the owner of the apartment will be unable to eat on his own, giving him the option of sharing it with others – whether it be neighbours in the building, work colleagues, or loved ones. In this way, the vegetable garden supplies not only food, but also the potential for extending the relational capacities of the dwelling, questioning the widespread idea of the modern apartment as an isolated residential nucleus. The dwelling explores the social nature of Madrid’s traditional corralas through this surplus of food, as well as by way of a curtain at the entrance that allows for different degrees of contact with the outer corridor – principally in summer, since the door can be left open and the curtain pulled back; by contrast, in winter, the curtain can be drawn and thus reinforce the privacy of the home, as well as providing sound and heat insulation. ///
WATER RECYCLING MICROLANDSCAPES BETWEEN SHOWER AND VEGETABLE GARDEN:
Part of the design is a watering system that makes use of the grey water from the shower; this could also serve as a replicable prototype that responds to the critical scarcity of water in a dry region like Madrid on a small scale.(2) Water is temporarily stored and then filtered to irrigate and maintain the plants which, as well as providing food, works as part of the thermal control solution to keep the interior cool – so much so that it was not necessary to install any mechanical cooling system such as air conditioning, even for the hottest months of the year. ///
MATERIAL AND COLOUR POLICIES:
The walls, storage units, and floors are made of a combination of plywood boards and pine wood pieces made in a carpentry workshop and assembled on-site. We avoided plastering the walls, opting instead for a solution with breathable mortars in the bathroom, walls, and ceilings. In contrast with the antiseptic, supposedly neutral, white ambience of hospital wards where most doctors work, the atmosphere of the new dwelling is cosy and changeable, according to the lighting that the owner of the apartment decides upon, and according to the time of day. Walls and floors are warm colours like orange, cream, and the natural colours of the pine and birch plywood, with a few details in pink and purple that reinforce the non-heteronormative nature of this home space.(3) We aimed to create a microlandscape with the tubes and filters running from the shower to the vegetable garden, allowing the flow of water to be seen in a way that attempts to be didactic, and understanding it as an assemblage of possible new ‘objects of desire’ for a hypothetical new, sustainable era.(4)
This home is the spatial translation of this pair of flatmates’ different needs and specific wishes, but we believe that it also opens up the possibility of a new typological configuration and of the implementation of multiple strategies for many other, very different social microrealities and forms of home in a small living space. ///
FOOTNOTES:
(1) In addition to personal life experiences a systematic research on the matter was carried out through several short interviews in Madrid in 2018.
(2) According to the Spanish Ministry of the Environment in an official report of 2016 quoted by Eldiario.es, over the course of this century 80% of Spain will be at risk of desertification and large cities like Madrid put an enormous pressure on regional water sources. See the article «El 80% de España, en riesgo de convertirse en desierto este siglo por el cambio climático» in Eldiario.es, March 20th of 2019. [Website visited on March 25th of 2019].
In Madrid, housing is responsible for 70% of water consumption. Official data from the Government of Madrid. ‹https://www.madrid.es/portales/munimadrid/es/Inicio/El-Ayuntamiento/Estadistica/Areas-de-informacion-estadistica/Territorio-climatologia-y-medio-ambiente/Medio-ambiente/Agua/?vgnextfmt=default&vgnextoid=a33703e5c6f59210VgnVCM2000000c205a0aRCRD&vgnextchannel=bb5cfbc78432a210VgnVCM1000000b205a0aRCRD› [Website visited on February 10th of 2019], based on statistical information from the Canal de Isabel II. (Madrid, water Company).
(3) This project continues an inquiry that briefly started in 2006 by Husos on non-heteronormative spatialities in Madrid. At that time it was focused on the Gay Bears Urbanisms. A case study was published in Diego Barajas, «Incubadora Social Público-privada en la sala “De nombre público” en Madrid» Nekane Aramburu (editor), Un lugar bajo el sol, Buenos Aires, editorial CCEBA, 2006, pg. 114,115. ‹http://nuevamuseologia.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/unlugarbajoelsol.pdf› [Website visited on April 1st of 2019]. An early reference was the work by Jan Kapsemberg into gay urban landscapes. See. Bart Lootsma, «Erotic Manouvers» en Hunch Magazine No. 2, The Berlage Institute, 2000.
(4) During the development of this prototype, consultations with a clinical laboratory and microbiologists at a Hospital in Madrid were conducted thanks to collaboration on this matter with the owner of the apartment and his professional relation with the medical network in the city. The purpose was to assess health related risks of reusing water from the shower for irrigating a vegetable garden for food production. The specialists’ concluded that this practice was harm free, both for the plants and for humans consuming them, prescribing the use of biodegradable body soap. This prototype is part of a series of projects carried out by Husos on the issue of sustainable water irrigation systems in buildings. They first started in 2004 while developing the «Host and Nectar Garden Building», and continued later in the project for a «Rural Productive Refuge in La Calera» in 2013 and in 2014 with the «Ecosocial Campus Project» published in Summa+ No 145, Buenos Aires, 2015. A very early reference of a water recycling landscape was presented in the conceptual installation «Rolling House», by the Office of Political Innovation in Construmat 2009. On the importance of making evident the use and management of resources through making the related infrastructures visible, see also the theoretical and practical work developed by the architecture office elii. ///
CREDITS:
Architects: Husos, (Camilo García and Diego Barajas with the collaboration of: Francesca Beltrame, Agustina Zaratiegui, Álvaro Heredia, Giulia Poma, Estefania Roiko and Wiktoria Stepien).
Construction: Husos (general coordination), Verticales Formé (carpentry), Atipical (building, installations, etc.).
Horticulture and irrigation system consultants: Nuria Preciado (agronomist), Antonio Gámiz (agronomist), César Nunes, Julián Pérez, Chema Blanco.
laboratory medical assistance: Jaime A.
Structural consulting: Mecanismo.
Measurements and budgeting: José Pérez.
Photos: José Hevia.
Dates:
Project: 2017
Construction: 2018
Location:
Arganzuela, Madrid.
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