Native agency Studio Noju has up to date a two-storey Madrid condo inside the Torres Blancas high-rise with a renovation that is still “in fixed dialogue” with the unique condo design.
Designed in 1961 by architect Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oíz, Torres Blancas is a 71-metre-high uncovered concrete tower that includes cylindrical shapes that create bulbous balconies on its facade and curved rooms inside.
Studio Noju overhauled the 1040 unit – the brutalist constructing’s greatest condo – to steadiness its historical past with modern design particulars, in keeping with the agency.
“Our inside design proposal for the condo takes inspiration from the unique concepts that the architect got here up with for the constructing,” studio co-founder Antonio Mora informed Dezeen.
A key a part of the challenge concerned increasing the condo’s exterior space on the primary ground from 15 to virtually 80 sq. metres to create the quantity of out of doors area that existed earlier than a number of previous renovations of the tower.
This enlargement added terraces which are characterised by curved floor-to-ceiling glazing and slatted crimson shutters. These open onto gleaming inexperienced ceramic tiles that take cues from Nineteen Sixties interiors and type built-in benches, fountains and planters that observe the terraces’ meandering contours.
“The outside areas have been as soon as once more consolidated right into a steady terrace that follows the define of the unique plan,” defined Mora, who arrange Studio Noju with Eduardo Tazón in 2020.
“There’s a fixed dialogue between most of the options now we have proposed within the inside design of the condo with these proposed greater than 50 years in the past by Sáenz de Oiza.”
Guests enter the condo at a semi-circular lobby that includes Segovia black slate and wine-red panelling – the identical supplies used within the constructing’s communal areas.
The open-plan floor ground is interrupted by snaking white structural partitions, reminiscent of a partition in the lounge that options repetitive round openings.
A steady custom-made countertop with a refined inexperienced hue kinds the kitchen space, which features a assertion bulbous sink that echoes Torres Blancas’ cylindrical facade.
Mild displays from the unique glass-brick tinted home windows and illuminates the graceful resin ground and metallic wall accents.
White geometric treads create a floating staircase with an unique polished brass banister that results in the primary ground. Upstairs, a sequence of bedrooms is characterised by oak ceilings that distinction with the intense white ceilings on the bottom ground.
Every lavatory is playfully colour-coded with particular person mosaics of shiny tiles, full with sconce lights, mirrors and cabinetry that observe the rounded shapes discovered all through the condo.
“The [mosaic] materials allowed us to resolve all the weather of the toilet reminiscent of bathe areas, vanities, partitions and flooring, referencing an identical materials technique used within the unique design,” stated Mora.
Adjoining to the primary bed room, the first-floor terrace contains a big inexperienced tile-clad outside bathtub cloaked in a sheer curtain, which is flanked by vegetation that had been positioned to soak up the water produced by bathing.
“The factor that we’re most pleased with is the sensation of a house-patio that has been recovered within the condo,” mirrored Mora.
“The unit as soon as once more revolves across the exterior areas, and these appear to mix with the inside by means of the curved traces of inexperienced tiles that enter and exit the lounge and eating space,” added the architect.
“Our greatest problem was hanging a steadiness between honouring the constructing, however on the identical time imbuing the inside design with our language.”
Studio Noju showcased an identical vibrant type in its debut challenge, which concerned the renovation of an open-plan Seville condo.
Torres Blancas was among the many buildings captured by photographer Roberto Conte in his collection of brutalist buildings in Madrid.
The pictures is by José Hevia.
