“We’d like to have a family home where we can live happy”. Yes, that’s a very typical project. However, it is an exceptional one! How will they describe their dreams to us? How will we manage to interpret them? Ah! If only we could spy on them through the window…
We receive a commission to design a family home out of two small apartments situated in quite an old multi-family housing unit, which has only a few pre-existing elements resistant to the multiple alterations that the building has suffered. We are very excited about this project: we are aware of the responsibility that this commission implies.
Through the four already existing windows, correctly oriented and with great views, and through a high-quality courtyard, we get to a space open to the exterior. We want to link all the rooms through the facade, as if it was the common thread that establishes the flowing relationship between the spaces, which we always pursue in our work. Although we cannot modify the existing apertures, we move the exterior carpentry inside the living room in order to generate a covered terrace: a transparent box to promote the interior-exterior gradation.
Choosing one material for all the woodwork, using numerous sliding panels and searching for crossway views, transparencies and reflections, we conceive a continuous and adaptable living space, a light and respectful stage for a singular and unrepeatable performance: the life of a family.
Arnau Vergés i Tejero, Architect