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 largest 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 advised Dezeen.
A key a part of the mission concerned increasing the condo’s exterior space on the primary flooring from 15 to virtually 80 sq. metres to create the quantity of outside house that existed earlier than a number of previous renovations of the tower.
This enlargement added terraces which can be characterised by curved floor-to-ceiling glazing and slatted crimson shutters. These open onto gleaming inexperienced ceramic tiles that take cues from Sixties interiors and kind built-in benches, fountains and planters that comply with the terraces’ meandering contours.
“The out of doors 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 lots of the options we’ve got 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 flooring is interrupted by snaking white structural partitions, corresponding to a partition in the lounge that options repetitive round openings.
A steady custom-made countertop with a delicate inexperienced hue varieties 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 sleek resin flooring and metallic wall accents.
White geometric treads create a floating staircase with an authentic polished brass banister that results in the primary flooring. Upstairs, a sequence of bedrooms is characterised by oak ceilings that distinction with the brilliant white ceilings on the bottom flooring.
Every lavatory is playfully colour-coded with particular person mosaics of vivid tiles, full with sconce lights, mirrors and cabinetry that comply with the rounded shapes discovered all through the condo.
“The [mosaic] materials allowed us to resolve all the weather of the lavatory corresponding to bathe areas, vanities, partitions and flooring, referencing an analogous materials technique used within the authentic design,” mentioned Mora.
Adjoining to the principle bed room, the first-floor terrace consists of a big inexperienced tile-clad out of doors bathtub cloaked in a sheer curtain, which is flanked by crops that had been positioned to soak up the water produced by bathing.
“The factor that we’re most happy 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 via the curved traces of inexperienced tiles that enter and exit the lounge and eating space,” added the architect.
“Our largest problem was placing a steadiness between honouring the constructing, however on the identical time imbuing the inside design with our language.”
Studio Noju showcased an analogous vibrant model in its debut mission, which concerned the renovation of an open-plan Seville condo.
Torres Blancas was among the many buildings captured by photographer Roberto Conte in his sequence of brutalist buildings in Madrid.
The pictures is by José Hevia.
