A sawtooth roof, blue ceramic tiles and corrugated steel panels define this home in Madrid, Spain, designed by Ignacio G Galán and OF Architects.

Designed for an ageing couple with increasing mobility difficulties, Beyond-the-family Kin by Ignacio G Galán and Alvaro M Fidalgo and Arantza Ozaeta of OF Architects seeks to encourage social connections in order to create new networks of interdependence for the owners.

"Care for and by older individuals has many times been enacted within the nuclear family, often hosted in intergenerational households," the architects told Dezeen.

"We imagine this project as an alternative to those, opening up a space for new forms of kinship, new interdependencies, and new forms of support within a network of infrastructures shaping a renewed social movement for aging in place."

The home's bold exterior is offset by green steel used for shutters, railings and furniture, while a warmer interior palette features oak wood and tiled flooring.

A sequence of cascading gardens wrap around the home, providing outdoor seating along with a small pool. A roof terrace provides additional gardening and outdoor space for the couple.

"While new constructions in the area tend to turn most of the social life towards patios located on the rear side of their lots, the design of this house learns from older houses in the neighborhood that open towards a front patio more directly connected to the street," the architects said.

"In this way, the different social networks that the house hosts are also connected with larger social structures in the area... as a way of countering isolation."

The ground floor, accessed from the street via a short ramp, opens into a living and dining room with a sawtooth roof, with an adjacent kitchen overlooking the front gardens.

A short corridor, leading from the living space into the couple's en-suite bedroom, provides built-in storage, while another corridor at the rear leads out to a small, enclosed courtyard.

Operable windows in the sawtooth roof were coupled with automatised louvers that control heat gains and lighting to create a well ventilated and comfortable interior.

Additionally, solar panels, held up by a prominent green steel structure on the roof, are used to power the home's heated flooring.

The lower floor, defined by its concrete exterior, hosts an independent living unit designed to provide the residents with the opportunity to either rent out the space for financial stability or host an in-house carer if required.

Two additional en-suite bedrooms are provided on the upper floor, along with a shared kitchen unit.

Other recently completed projects relating to elderly housing include a senior housing project in London that draws on traditional almshouses and a multi-generational housing scheme organised around a communal garden in Germany.

The photography is by Imagen Subliminal.

Project credits:

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Design studio Puntofilipino has created a richly layered interior full of texture and patina for this Madrid apartment, designed to offer an unexpected take on the client's passion for Danish art and furniture.

Set in a former bank office building in the Salamanca neighbourhood that dates back to 1929, the one-bedroom apartment was conceived as a refuge for the client.

"He was looking for a space of relaxation, silence and solitude," Puntofilipino founder Gema Gutiérrez told Dezeen. "Madrid is a very fast city and his need was to find a place where time stopped."

Puntofilipino set out to design a space that reflects the client's love of Danish style without resorting to Scandinavian design cliches.

Instead, the studio sought to foster a sense of timelessness by balancing modern and historical influences, calling the apartment Radikal Klassisk.

"It's a very modern design and yet also with a slightly historical bent," she said. "There is a perpetual link between the past and the present."

"I wanted to show the client the coexistence and communion between classic and contemporary Danish brands," Gutiérrez added.

"Pieces by designers such as Hans J Wegner, father of modern Danish design, coexist with contemporary Danish brands such as Overgaard & Dyrman – both free of passing trends, timeless."

While the lines and forms are clean and modern, Gutiérrez says the materials themselves, which range from natural stone to terrazzo and wood, "are historically recognised noble materials, used in palaces throughout the centuries".

The work of Danish painter Ebba Cartensen was another influence on the apartment's aesthetic.

The late artist's cubist compositions informed the heavily patinated finishes seen in each room, from the clay-rendered walls to the marbled tiles.

"I looked for the pictorial representation of Ebba Carstensen's painting," said Gutiérrez.

"The patinated finishes express time, distance, and memory – a ground-breaking, elegant and sober aesthetic that goes beyond the concept we have of Danish design."

In the bedroom, Puntofilipino used a darkly immersive botanical wallpaper by Instabilelab with a mural-like scale.

"The client has a predilection for bucolic painting," the studio said. "In addition, the plant motifs give depth to the space."

Here, as elsewhere, the colours are rich and intense, taking their cues from the tonal variations in the stone, metal and wood used in each room.

In the open-plan bedroom-bathroom, a monolithic stone tub takes on a sculptural quality as the central focal point within the space.

"I considered breaking with architectural patterns and giving more prominence to the centre of the room," Gutiérrez said. "The inside of the bathtub, metaphorically, reflects a bench where you could see any work of art in a museum."

The sofa fulfils a similar function in the living room, this time with an emphasis on curves rather than straight lines.

Produced by Danish design brand NORR11, it consists of three distinct elements, each upholstered in a different fabric progressing from off-white bouclé to olive green leather.

"I studied the soleo, the path of the sun, and how it affects colours and materials in the interior," Gutiérrez said. "The gradual transition gives depth and makes you look around the space, a dance through the senses."

Nearby in Salamanca, locals studio Lucas y Hernández-Gil recently completed JJ16 – a compact family home filled with colour blocking and clever storage solutions.

Also in the Spanish capital, Studio Noju has renovated a curvy two-storey apartment in the city's brutalist Torres Blancas tower.

The photography is by Polina Parcevskya and Julie Smorodkina.

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Raw finishes and brutalist interventions feature in footwear brand Veja's first dedicated shop in Madrid, complete with an in-house shoe repair workshop and interiors designed by local firm Plantea Estudio.

The retail space is housed in a building in the centre of Madrid, which has functioned as a shop, a restaurant and a bank office since its construction around the turn of the 20th century.

By the time Veja took on the space, it had been stripped back to a shell and the team at Plantea Estudio immediately saw the potential in the raw, rough interior.

"That kind of brick structure brings you to the origins of architecture, to a temporal language," the studio said. "It comes from always and goes forever, it will never be out of time or fashion."

"For us, there was no better option than to work from there, to leave it exposed."

The decision to work with the existing architecture rather than introducing unnecessary new materials also mirrors Veja's idea of having in-house repair shop, encouraging customers to fix rather than simply replace their run-down trainers.

However, the shell required much more active intervention from Plantea Estudio than the store's unfinished interior suggests.

"We had to work a lot for it to look like we didn't do anything," the studio said. "We brought the structure to its best version."

Plantea Estudio made the windows taller and brought the internal openings back up to their original height. The internal walls were cleaned up, exposing more of the brick and removing countless additions and coverings that remained from previous fitouts.

Where the materials were low-quality and couldn't be removed, Plantea Estudio spray-coated the walls in a mix of plaster and Perlite mortar, "which accentuates the irregularity of the base".

The floor was coated uniformly with cement mortar, creating a continuous surface throughout the interior while providing a contrast with the chunky cobblestones laid in the entrance hall.

The building's functional pipes and pinewood supports were left exposed while the ceilings are clad in roughly textured sound insulation and embedded with graphic rows of strip lighting.

To form display areas, benches and counters, Plantea Estudio opted for stepped blocks of concrete – a favourite material of the brutalist movement – cast in situ using moulds made from old wooden boards.

As a clear contrast to the heavy solidity of these pieces, the store's shelving is made of folded sheets of white-lacquered steel.

"The main collection is displayed on these steel shelves, illuminated by a light that's brighter than the general light in the store," the studio said.

The space is accentuated by large-format mirrors, applied to the building's brick pillars, where Plantea Estudio says they work at "multiplying the cross views".

A large ficus tree marks the entrance while furniture was sourced from vintage design retailer Fenix Originals and includes 1960s armchairs by Catalan designer Joaquim Belsa.

Plantea Estudio, which was founded by brothers Luis and Lorenzo Gil in 2008, has completed a number of interior projects in the Spanish capital.

Among them is the neutral-toned Hermosilla restaurant, as well as a bar serving wine and small plates, where a cosy red "cave" room is hidden behind the main dining space.

The photography is by Salva López.

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Madrid studio Lucas y Hernández-Gil has completed a family home that makes the most of every inch, with details including a yellow storage wall, a corridor kitchen and a hidden closet.

JJ16 is a three-bedroom apartment in Madrid's Salamanca district, but until recently it had been used as an office.

Lucas y Hernández-Gil, a specialist in interior architecture, converted the property back into a residence for a family that includes a mother, three teenage children and their dog.

The challenge was not only to make it feel like a home again but also to create space for everyone's personality within the 165 square-metre footprint.

The designers achieved this by combining space-saving strategies with statement details, providing both functionality and character.

"Everyone had a clear idea of what they needed, which translated directly into the spaces," said studio founders Cristina Domínguez Lucas and Fernando Hernández-Gil Ruano.

"Far from generating a conflict, different colours and materials give the house a richness, a harmonic heterogeneity," they told Dezeen.

Optimising JJ16's layout was crucial but difficult given the irregularity of the floor plan.

Lucas y Hernández-Gil's strategy was to make every space, including the corridors, as useful as possible.

The kitchen now occupies a connecting space between the entrance lobby and the living room, freeing up space at the front of the apartment for a spacious main bedroom.

Meanwhile, the corridor leading to the main bathroom and the third bedroom incorporates a mini library and a utility area.

"The main challenge was the deep layout and long corridor," said the architects.

"We provided circulation with content by creating spaces within it. This turned out to be one of the best design decisions of the project."

Curved partitions create variety within JJ16's layout. The largest of these separates the living room from the main bedroom, but other curves can be found in the second bedroom and a shower room.

Many spaces have their own colours, which contrast with the bright white tones that otherwise dominate the interior.

The bright yellow bookshelf wall is the most striking, while the adjacent kitchen offers a two-tone effect with shades of soft pink and grey, and matt chrome finishes.

Bedrooms have a minimal feel, but they boast colourful dressing rooms and en-suites. Bright orange was chosen for the hidden walk-in closet, located in the twin third bedroom, while deep purple adds a luxury feel in the main bedroom.

Floor surfaces provide more visual interest. Living spaces feature oak parquet, while bathrooms are all finished with patterned cement tiles.

This bold approach to colour and texture is a common feature in the work of Lucas y Hernández-Gil, whose other recent projects include the sunset-inspired Naked and Famous bar and the stylish Casa A12.

"The approach to colour is a constant in our design process," said Lucas and Hernández-Gil Ruano.

"It is about activating spaces and achieving a warm and joyful domestic atmosphere."

The photography is by Jose Hevia.

Project credits

Architecture: Lucas y Hernández-Gil
Collaborators: Lucía Balboa, María Domínguez, Sara Urriza

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A red "cave" hides behind the main dining space of this wine and small plates bar in Madrid designed by interiors studio Plantea Estudio.

Located on the ground floor of a neoclassical building in Madrid's buzzy Justicia neighbourhood, Plantea Estudio designed Gota to appear "dark, stony and secluded".

Guests ring a bell to enter the 70-square-metre bar, and are then welcomed into a dining room enclosed by thickset granite ashlar walls. While some of the walls were left exposed, others have been smoothly plastered over and washed with grey lime paint.

The floor was overlaid with black volcanic stone tiles that the studio thought were suggestive of a "newly discovered terrain".

A bench seat runs down the left-hand side of the bar, accompanied by lustrous aluminium tables and square birchwood stools from Danish design brand Frama.

Guests can alternatively perch on high stools at the peripheries of the room, where lies a slender stone ledge for drinks to be set down on.

More seating was created around a bespoke chestnut counter at the room's centre; its surfacetop has an in-built turntable on which the Gota team plays a curated selection of music.

Behind the counter is a storage wall where wine bottles, vintage vinyl records and other music-related paraphernalia are displayed.

An open doorway takes guests down a short corridor to a secondary cave-like dining space, which boasts a dramatic vaulted ceiling and craggy brick walls. It has been almost entirely painted red.

"It's relatively common to find this kind of vaulted brick space in the basements of old buildings in Madrid – this case was special because it's on the ground floor with small openings to a garden," the studio told Dezeen.

"It was perfect for a more quiet and private area of the bar," it continued.

"The red colour is an abstract reference to the brick of which the cave is really made, and also a reference to wine."

At the room's heart is a huge 10-centimetre-thick granite table that's meant to look as if it has "been there forever", surrounded by aluminium chairs also from Frama. Smaller birch tables and chairs custom-designed by the studio have been tucked into the rooms corners.

To enhance the cosy, intimate feel of the bar, lighting has been kept to a minimum – there are a handful of candles, reclaimed sconces and an alabaster lamp by Spanish brand Santa & Cole.

Established in 2008, Plantea Estudio is responsible for a number of hospitality projects in Madrid.

Others include Hermosilla, a Mediterranean restaurant decked out in earthy tones, and Sala Equis, a multi-purpose entertainment space that occupies a former erotic cinema.

The photography is by Salva López.

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Spanish design students used red oak, maple, cherry and tulip woods to create furniture pieces for Slow Spain: Slow furniture for fast change, an exhibition by the American Hardwood Export Council at Madrid Design Festival.

A side table that doubles as a lamp, a modular shelving unit and a backless chair were among the designs created by 17 university students for the exhibition, which aims to explore American hardwoods and mindful material and furniture consumption.

"Red oak, maple, cherry and tulipwood are not used widely in Europe, they are used very little in Spain," said American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) European director David Venables.

"But they're 50 per cent of all our trees. We need to think much broader and use more wood and be prepared to use different materials as fashions and trends can sometimes be a barrier to success," Venables told Dezeen.

Slow Spain was on show at Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa, a theatre and cultural centre and one of Madrid Design Festival's main exhibition venues.

Designers Natale Armendáriz, Jon Calleja, Nora Etxeberria, Ane Ozkoidi, Eli Yang, Anna Perathoner and Arnau Anoro all exhibited modular furniture designs that accommodate flexible lifestyles.

A cot that can be transformed into a clothing rail once the baby has grown up and a shelving unit with detachable panels were among the designs.

Other pieces by the students, which came from nine Spanish design universities, were designed as alternatives to traditional items such as desks and chairs.

Daniela González Martínez created a chair that draws on Japanese craftsmanship, while Leve Mon Verre by Cèlia Anglés is a drinks cabinet that invites people to interact as they have a drink.

In line with AHEC's ethos, which champions the use of sustainable and durable materials, some of the designs were wooden versions of furniture that is often made from plastic.

These included Töei by Alejandro Lorca, Elena Romero and Cristina Urbano, a garden seat for outdoor use that was made from American tulipwood. It was designed to cocoon users when sitting inside, in an effort to encourage rest and shelter from the outside world.

To create the objects, the students worked under the guidance of three Spanish designers – Inma Bermúdez and Moritz Krefter of Studio Inma Bermúdez, Álvaro Catalán de Ocón and Jorge Penadés.

AHEC then took the students to the manufacturing site La Navarra in Madrid, where renowned architects and designers have previously had their designs manufactured.

Here, the students observed the pieces being handcrafted and learned about the specific carpentry and joinery processes.

The resulting designs demonstrate the different wood qualities and characteristics. Berta Albiac Adell, Queralt Font Sabadell and Albert Roca Nonell chose to work with American maple for its light tones for their bedside table.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Paige decided to use American red oak for his easel-cum-desk piece, which is held together with dovetail joints. Elsewhere, Blas by Sheila Valle García was constructed from American tulipwood because of its veiny appearance and changes in tones.

The hope was that students would gain awareness and knowledge about the different species of wood and that they may consider using American hardwoods in future projects.

"Slow is about education and opportunity," said Venables. "We have attempted to fill the gap in design education which often does not provide an in-depth experience for design students to learn about and work with hardwood materials."

According to AHEC, American hardwoods are growing at a far greater rate than it is harvested, making them a sustainable material choice for designers.

The students taking part in the exhibition came from EASD Escola d’Art i Superior de Disseny de València, Elisava Escola Universitària de Disseny i Enginyeria de Barcelona, ESDAP Campus Llotja – Escola Superior Disseny i d’Arts Plàstiques de Catalunya, ESDi Escola Superior de Disseny (Sabadell), ESDIR (Escuela Superior de Diseño de la Rioja), ESNE Escuela universitaria de diseño, innovación y tecnología, IED Barcelona, IED Madrid and Mondragon Unibertsitatea.

Other exhibitions by AHEC include Forest Tales by Studio Swine, which saw packing crates form an installation at Milan Design Week 2022 and Too Good to Waste, a playful exhibition of wooden furniture by Italian architect Benedetta Tagliabue.

Slow Spain: Slow furniture for fast change is on show at Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa as part of Madrid Design Festival 2023, which takes place from 14 February to 12 March. See Dezeen Events Guide for information about the many other exhibitions, installations and talks taking place throughout the month.

The photography is courtesy of AHEC.

Project credits:

Designers: Jonathan Paige, Berta Albiac Adell, Queralt Font Sabadell, Albert Roca Nonell, Cèlia Anglés, Arnau Anoro, Sheila Valle García, Alejandro Lorca, Elena Romero, Cristina Urbano, Eli Yang, Anna Perathoner, Daniela González Martínez, Natale Armendáriz, Jon Calleja, Nora Etxeberria, Ane Ozkoidi
Mentors: Inma Bermúdez and Moritz Krefter, Álvaro Catalán de Ocón, Jorge Penadés
Partners: American Hardwood Export Council, Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa, La Navarra, Madrid Design Festival, Onesta

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Local firm Studio Noju has updated a two-storey Madrid apartment within the Torres Blancas high-rise with a renovation that remains "in constant dialogue" with the original apartment design.

Designed in 1961 by architect Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oíz, Torres Blancas is a 71-metre-high exposed concrete tower featuring cylindrical shapes that create bulbous balconies on its facade and curved rooms inside.

Studio Noju overhauled the 1040 unit – the brutalist building's biggest apartment – to balance its history with contemporary design details, according to the firm.

"Our interior design proposal for the apartment takes inspiration from the original ideas that the architect came up with for the building," studio co-founder Antonio Mora told Dezeen.

A key part of the project involved expanding the apartment's exterior area on the first floor from 15 to almost 80 square metres to create the amount of outdoor space that existed before multiple past renovations of the tower.

This expansion added terraces that are characterised by curved floor-to-ceiling glazing and slatted crimson shutters. These open onto gleaming green ceramic tiles that take cues from 1960s interiors and form built-in benches, fountains and planters that follow the terraces' meandering contours.

"The outdoor spaces have been once again consolidated into a continuous terrace that follows the outline of the original plan," explained Mora, who set up Studio Noju with Eduardo Tazón in 2020.

"There is a constant dialogue between many of the solutions we have proposed in the interior design of the apartment with those proposed more than 50 years ago by Sáenz de Oiza."

Visitors enter the apartment at a semi-circular foyer featuring Segovia black slate and wine-red panelling – the same materials used in the building's communal areas.

The open-plan ground floor is interrupted by snaking white structural walls, such as a partition in the living room that features repetitive circular openings.

A continuous custom-made countertop with a subtle green hue forms the kitchen area, which includes a statement bulbous sink that echoes Torres Blancas' cylindrical facade.

Light reflects from the original glass-brick tinted windows and illuminates the smooth resin floor and metallic wall accents.

White geometric treads create a floating staircase with an original polished brass banister that leads to the first floor. Upstairs, a sequence of bedrooms is characterised by oak ceilings that contrast with the bright white ceilings on the ground floor.

Each bathroom is playfully colour-coded with individual mosaics of bright tiles, complete with sconce lights, mirrors and cabinetry that follow the rounded shapes found throughout the apartment.

"The [mosaic] material allowed us to solve all the elements of the bathroom such as shower areas, vanities, walls and floors, referencing a similar material strategy used in the original design," said Mora.

Adjacent to the main bedroom, the first-floor terrace includes a large green tile-clad outdoor bathtub cloaked in a sheer curtain, which is flanked by plants that were positioned to absorb the water produced by bathing.

"The element that we are most proud of is the feeling of a house-patio that has been recovered in the apartment," reflected Mora.

"The unit once again revolves around the exterior spaces, and these seem to blend with the interior through the curved traces of green tiles that enter and exit the living room and dining area," added the architect.

"Our biggest challenge was striking a balance between honouring the building, but at the same time imbuing the interior design with our language."

Studio Noju showcased a similar colourful style in its debut project, which involved the renovation of an open-plan Seville apartment.

Torres Blancas was among the buildings captured by photographer Roberto Conte in his series of brutalist buildings in Madrid.

The photography is by José Hevia. 

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Spanish architect Andrés Jaque's Office for Political Innovation has completed a school near Madrid that aims to be as colourful and playful as a child's imagination.

Located in Encinar de los Reyes, on the northern outskirts of the Spanish capital, Reggio School is a six-storey building featuring cork walls, concrete arches, porthole windows and zigzagging roofs.

Inside, classrooms and other teaching spaces are interspersed with indoor gardens.

Jaque – who is dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture as well as the founder of New York-based Office for Political Innovation – describes it as "a complex ecosystem" for education.

"Avoiding homogenisation and unified standards, the architecture of the school aims to become a multiverse where the layered complexity of the environment becomes readable and experiential," the studio said.

"It operates as an assemblage of different climates, ecosystems, architectural traditions and regulations."

The Reggio school model was pioneered in Reggio Emilia, northern Italy, where a series of preschools promote child-led rather than adult-dictated forms of learning.

Based on a concept developed in the 1940s by educator Loris Malaguzzi, these schools offer more scope for creativity and imagination than traditional learning environments.

Office for Political Innovation, led by principal Roberto González García, has brought the same kind of thinking to architecture.

To create spaces that fully support this method of education, the building is organised as a mini vertical city. Each level has a different feel and the age of pupils increases as you move up.

"This distribution of uses implies an ongoing maturity process that is translated into the growing capacity of students to explore the school ecosystem on their own and with their peers," said the architects.

Ground and first-floor rooms are designed to interact with the landscape, with some partially submerged in the earth.

On the two intermediate floors, rooms are organised around an eight-metre-high hall. This open-air space functions as both a social plaza and a space where children learn about nature.

The two upper levels feature classrooms interspersed around an atrium greenhouse and various indoor gardens, which are filled with plants thanks to reclaimed water and soil tanks located below.

Sustainability played a key role in shaping the building's design aesthetic, but also keeping costs low.

A minimal-waste approach led to service pipes, ducts, wires and grilles being left exposed rather than concealed.

Instead of doubling up on exterior cladding and thermal insulation, cork – an entirely natural material – serves both purposes, covering 80 per cent of the building volume.

The building volume is also highly efficient, thanks to both its multi-level layout and an optimised structural arrangement calculated by engineer and researcher Iago González Quelle.

Office for Political Innovation describes the approach as "thinning, skinning and making fluffy".

"The overall amount of material used in the facades, roofs and interior partitions of the building has been reduced by 48 per cent just by replacing a big part of the construction by simple strategies or thermal insulation and mechanical systems distribution," it said.

"The result presents a naked building where the non-edited visibility of its operating components defines its aesthetics."

Jaque is known for his experimental approach to architecture, as seen in projects like the Never Never Land House in Ibiza and the Cosmo installation in the MoMA PS1 courtyard in New York.

Reggio School is his studio's largest built work to date.

The ambition is for the building to redefine the concept of a sustainable school, looking beyond the building fabric to the types of uses and activities it facilitates.

The photography is by José Hevia.

Project credits:

Architects: Andrés Jaque/Office for Political Innovation
Team: Roberto González García, Luis González Cabrera, Alberto Heras, Ismael Medina Manzano, Jesús Meseguer Cortés, Paola Pardo-Castillo, Rajvi Anandpara, Juan David Barreto, Inês Barros, Ludovica Battista, Shubhankar Bhajekar, Elise Durand, Drishti Gandhi, Maria Karagianni, Bansi Mehta, Alessandro Peja, Meeerati Rana, Mishti Shah, Saumil Shanghavi
Structural engineering: Qube Ingeniería de Estructuras
Services engineering: JG Ingenieros
Quantity survey (project): Dirtec Arquitectos Técnicos
Ecology and edaphology: Mingobasarrate
Project management: Ángel David Moreno Casero, Carlos Peñalver Álvarez, Almudena Antón Vélez

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Designers Matteo Ferrari and Carlota Gallo have transformed a traditional two-storey apartment in Madrid, Spain, into a tranquil home for themselves featuring a pared-back palette of natural materials and crafted details.

Casa Olivar is located in a typical corrala – a type of apartment building found in the old parts of Madrid, where housing units are accessed from external covered corridors.

The apartment's interior was in poor condition when Ferrari and Gallo purchased the property, and decided to convert it into a contemporary home.

The design retains some of the building's historical features while reorganising the compact interior to create a series of light and bright interconnected spaces.

Ferrari and Gallo describe the apartment as a "non-urban place, a sensorial refuge to reconnect with ourselves, regulate our emotions and disconnect from the hustle and bustle of the outside world".

The couple used a pared-back material palette to create a warm and comfortable atmosphere, making the most of the daylight that enters the interior through two large windows in the living room.

"The intervention is characterised by a spatial continuity and a warm minimalism," the duo explained. "It seeks to elevate natural light and encourage the use of local craft materials, generating a close dialogue between light and materiality."

A central partition dividing the dining area from the living room was altered by adding a pair of lowered arches that echo the proportions of the facade openings.

Light from the windows passes through the openings to reach the kitchen, while the bedroom downstairs receives indirect illumination from a pair of openings in the floor above.

Throughout the interior, the designers chose to use simple and authentic materials, featuring predominantly earthy tones.

"The approach is to be honest with the materials, respecting their authentic appearance and textures while prioritising natural resources and local craftsmanship," Ferrari and Gallo explained.

The apartment's entrance opens directly into the kitchen and dining area, which is arranged around a sculptural table designed by the couple that features a textural Tadelakt plaster finish.

Floors are covered with handmade terracotta tiles to create consistency between the spaces. The same tiles are used in the bathroom, with their varying dimensions giving each space a unique quality.

Tables and display stands were created using stone salvaged during the renovation process, while the kitchen's aluminium storage units provide a contemporary counterpoint to the natural tones and textures.

Gallo designed the textiles used within the apartment to add texture and dynamism to the spaces. These include a draped nylon curtain that echoes the warm tones used in the bathroom.

Other works of art and craft bring personality to the apartment, such as the washbasin made by designer María Lázaro and a hammock woven in Colombia using traditional techniques.

Ferrari moved from Italy to Madrid in 2008 after completing his architecture studies at the University of Ferrara. He founded his own studio in 2015, which focuses on using simple gestures to create timeless and familiar spaces.

The photography is by Asier Rua.

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Promotion: IE University aims to drive change through its Strategic Interior Design course by teaching students to find "human-centred design solutions" for the new needs of our post-pandemic world.

IE University's Strategic Interior Design course is a six-month programme geared towards accelerating students' careers, and includes a mixture of online sessions and in-person teaching at the university's Madrid-based campus.

The course is focused on applying design-led thinking to real-life issues and is designed to teach students ways of creatively solving problems to offer high-tech interiors that are mindful of the environment.

"The world needs more resilient social infrastructures to respond to all the new requirements generated by the pandemic," said Elvira Muñoz, who is director of the diploma in Strategic Interior Design. "They will need to be functional, responsive, sustainable, versatile and responsive to all the new needs and behavioural patterns."

"To fully understand the new challenges and disruptions and to provide meaningful design solutions, the world needs to approach these problems from the inside out," Muñoz continued.

According to the university, current trends in strategic interior design emphasise the need for creatives to refresh their skills. This includes the downsizing of office spaces and increasingly virtual interaction following the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to Muñoz, who is also director of Interior Design EMEA at AECOM, learning to be a strategic interior designer also helps people differentiate from their peers in design.

The diploma at IE University is suitable for individuals hoping to break into the design sector and companies looking to up-skill their teams.

Students will not only gain an insight into interior design, but also into workplace consultancy, UX design, real estate transactions, facility management and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns.

"By the end [of the diploma] you will be able to lead any design project, and position your organisation at the top," said IE University.

"This program can really change your life," added Muñoz, "because it will provide you with a set of skills and tools that will help you to become a better designer and a better strategist."

"I think together we can educate designers, architects, marketing profiles, business profiles and the fine-arts to be more relevant and more meaningful in their jobs, and teach them to provide solutions that last and that reach your clients’ goals," the director continued.

More information on IE University and the courses it offers can be found on its website.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen for IE University as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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Spanish architecture studio Sierra + De La Higuera has used traditional Moroccan zellige tiles to define the different spaces in this open-plan apartment in Madrid.

Housed in a 1940s building in the city's bohemian Conde Duque neighbourhood, the apartment belongs to a well-travelled couple that wanted to stamp its Mexican and Galician heritage onto the interior.

"Our clients wanted to bring part of their origins to Madrid," Sierra + De La Higuera told Dezeen. "This project is the outcome of a quest to find colour in Madrid, a characteristic marked by the owners' journeys and origins."

The studio was commissioned to carry out a complete refurbishment of the apartment, which included totally changing its layout.

The original plan consisted of a series of rooms laid out along a long windowless hallway. Sierra + De La Higuera removed as many walls as possible to create an open-plan kitchen, dining and living space.

"Historically in Madrid, houses had a lot of rooms and partitions," the studio told Dezeen.

"But nowadays, we like to live on a more open-plan basis. The main aim of the new layout was to open spaces, eliminate corridors and hallways, and to gain as much natural light as possible."

Two bedrooms – one with a walk-in wardrobe and both with adjoining bathrooms – are located at the north end of the apartment while a bright sitting room wrapped by south-facing terraces sits at the opposite end.

Throughout the apartment, natural timber, terracotta tiles and white walls were used as foils to the zellige tiling, which is distinguished by its imperfect hand-moulded surfaces.

The wood-panelled entrance hall with its arched doorways was conceived as a buffer between two different zones. On the one side is the Mexico-influenced kitchen and dining area finished with emerald green tiles.

And on the other side are the living room and the terraces with their bold yellow colour scheme, which were informed by the couple's travels to Singapore.

"We focused on vivid colours: bright yellows, greens, blues and reds, paired with materials like tiles, ceramics and fine wood," explained Sierra + De La Higuera.

In the sitting room and the two bathrooms – finished in red and blue respectively – the tiles were used to create decorative striped skirting that frames the different zones.

In some areas, the colours of the tiles are applied to other furnishings to create a cohesive feel, with the green upholstery in the living room echoing the glazed green tiles in the kitchen.

A large bookshelf that runs around the kitchen, dining and living room area was custom designed for the space by Sierra + De La Higuera.

"This element is very important to the clients, as it holds all the objects they have collected on each of their journeys in addition to all their books," the studio explained.

In the bedroom, the architects designed custom cabinetry and specified a cloud-grey carpet to create a calm and cosy ambience, which is intended to evoke Galicia.

Other projects that use tiles to delineate rooms include a Barcelona bed and breakfast by Nook Architects that features vibrant blue tiles and cobalt-blue paintwork.

The photography is by German Sáiz.

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Spanish football club Real Madrid has released a video that shows the ongoing remodeling of its Santiago Bernabéu stadium, including the construction of its retractable pitch.

The video shows the exterior of the curved stadium, which is being renovated by designed by Spanish architecture studios L35 and Ribas & Ribas together with German studio GMP Architecten, being fitted with 106-metre-long beams weighing 530 tons.

Inside the 152,000-square-metre stadium, a large pit is being constructed that will hold a new pitch removal and storage system.

Pitch will be stored underground

The retractable pitch will be housed in six underground levels that reach a depth of over 25 metres and feature an underground irrigation system, as well as ultraviolet lighting for the pitch grass.

This design will allow the stadium to also be used for other events, such as baseball and tennis matches, with the grass divided into wide ribbons that are slotted underneath the stadium floor and elevated by hydraulic lifts when needed.

When the renovation is complete Santiago Bernabéu will also be used to hold concerts and will have a capacity of 85,000 visitors, up from its current number of 81,044.

Its wrap-around steel facade has been designed to be lit up so that images and information can be projected on the stadium's exterior, and it will also have a retractable roof.

Completion date set for 2023

One of the world's best-known stadiums, the Santiago Bernabéu was originally built in 1947 and designed by architects Manuel Muñoz Monasterio and Luis Alemany Soler. It is currently the second-largest stadium in Spain.

"The new stadium will continue to be the setting that generates the emotions which will leave their mark on Real Madrid's future," Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez said.

"It'll be the best stadium in the world in which to see us once again recognised at the end of the century as the best club of the 21st century," he added. "It'll offer a new stadium, heritage and be a new source of pride for our members and fans".

The stadium renovation was approved in 2016 and is expected to be completed in 2023.

Other stadiums that incorporate retractable playing surfaces include the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the UK, Sapporo Dome in Japan, the University of Phoenix Stadium in the USA, the Gelredome in the Netherlands and the Veltins-Arena in Germany.

In other football stadium news, football clubs Inter Milan and AC Milan have announced that the iconic San Siro will be replaced by a stadium designed by architecture studio Populous.

The video is courtesy of Real Madrid.

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The way that daylight plays on bricks served as the starting point for this neutral-toned restaurant interior, which architecture practice Plantea Estudio has completed in its hometown of Madrid, Spain.

Located in the city's Salamanca neighbourhood, Hermosilla is a 210-square-metre restaurant serving Mediterranean-style dishes made from local artisan produce alongside a small list of low-intervention wines.

To complement the menu, Plantea Estudio said it wanted to create a "timeless" interior for the eatery that eschews trends and fads.

"We were looking for a composition that was specific to this space, making the most of its qualities," said the studio's co-founder Luis Gil. "The aim was to achieve a little emotion with the minimum of artifice."

Hermosilla occupies a corner unit on the ground floor of a multi-use building by modernist Spanish architect Luis Gutiérrez Soto that was completed in 1952.

As a starting point for the restaurant's interior scheme, Plantea Estudio looked to the earthy tones of the building's dark red-orange bricks and the way they subtly change colour as the light shifts throughout the day.

"The main idea was to colour the environment with various complementary tones that reinforce this broad, natural spectrum of light and colour," Gil explained.

"The colours are enlivened and distinguished from each other or tempered and blended, depending on the moment."

The studio said it also hoped to "emphasise the power of the building" by creating a textured, cave-like interior that celebrates its original concrete, brick and plaster structure as well as the wooden flooring.

These historical materials are seamlessly blended with new additions such as the curved wall that encloses the pizza oven, the coral-red marble worktops and washbasins, and the dark wood accents found in the fixed furniture.

To temper these darker tones, Plantea Estudio specified a light birchwood version of Alvar Aalto's Chair 69 and aluminium seats by Danish company Frama, which the studio likens to vibrant "accessories".

Similarly, white lighting fixtures designed by modernist architects Arne Jacobsen and Charlotte Perriand serve as bright accents, while two fig trees were added to emphasise the height of the space.

Plantea Estudio was founded by brothers Lorenzo Gil and Luis Gil in 2008. Since then, the studio has renovated 30 houses and designed more than 25 restaurants, including the minimalist Madrid street food restaurant Zuppa.

Other projects include offices, art galleries, shops and a multi-purpose theatre that was formerly an adult-film cinema.

The photography is by Salva López.

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British architecture studio Foster + Partners has inserted a demountable timber structure into a disused gas plant in Madrid, Spain, creating a flexible and tree-lined office building.

Named Ombú, the adaptive reuse project was carried out to create a workspace for the Spanish energy company Acciona and save an existing brick building from demolition.

The early 20th-century gas plant has been fitted out with over 10,000 square metres of offices, filled with plants and timber finishes. There are also outdoor areas for private and public use.

Foster + Partners' aim was to provide "biophilic spaces" that will maximise both employees' wellbeing and the building's connectivity to nature.

"Ombú brings an industrial wasteland back to a new garden in the city," said the studio's founder Norman Foster.

"Madrid's benign climate allows workspaces to be outside as well as inside, creating a flexible and desirable lifestyle. Natural materials are brought into the existing building, contributing to biophilic spaces that are good for wellbeing and productivity."

The building was constructed in the Arganzuela district in 1905 with a design by the architect Luis de Landecho. It originally provided energy to the area but eventually became disused.

Acciona acquired the building in 2017 and its overhaul was revealed by Foster + Partners early in 2021. It was completed with local architect Ortiz León.

Foster + Partners' design for Ombú retains the building's original load-bearing brick structure, which supports steel trusses overhead. This preserved over 10,000 tonnes of material.

Inside, a lightweight structure made from locally sourced timber has been introduced to maximise useable space.

The timber structure creates a series of staggered floors that integrate building services such as lighting and ventilation.

The new structure was built from timber to make sure it is easily recyclable and demountable, and because the material has a low carbon footprint.

Artificial lighting is kept to a minimum as a central skylight floods the interior with natural light. The glass incorporates photovoltaic technology to generate electricity.

Among the outdoor areas is a new courtyard, which offers employees a cool outdoor workspace. This courtyard links to a 12,400 square-metre park that has been landscaped with 350 trees and shaded areas for private work and informal meetings.

Local species have been carefully selected to reduce water consumption, which will come from local sources.

Ombú has also been developed to encourage workers to commute using public transport by providing links to the city's rail and bus network.

According to Foster + Partners, the reuse of an existing structure and use of timber gives Ombú "a 1.0 Planet Ecological Footprint".

This means that its whole life carbon emissions can be absorbed by the current capacity of the Earth, aligning with the requirements of the Paris Agreement. It also makes it "one of the most sustainable projects by Foster + Partners", according to the studio.

"The design reduces embodied carbon by 25 per cent when compared to a new build over the whole life of the project, while making allowances for future refurbishment," the studio said.

"The operational energy is calculated to be 35 per cent below normal expectations."

Foster + Partners was founded by Foster in London in 1967. Today it has offices all around the world but its headquarters remain in the UK capital.

Elsewhere, the studio is also planning its overhaul of the iconic Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, which will involve the restoration of its exterior and an update to its interiors.

Other recent projects created from adaptively reused industrial buildings include the Argo Factory art museum by ASA North in Tehran and The King's School theatre in Canterbury by Tim Ronalds Architects.

American studio MN DPC converted an old ship-building factory in New York into a mixed-use building that is now used as the Crye Precision Headquarters.

The photography is by Nigel Young.

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Design studio Pareid filled a lecture theatre at the College of Architects of Madrid with a reversible installation made from PVC pipes, which were later donated for use as construction materials.

Called Everywhere and Nowhere, the installation took over COAM's Sálon de Actos as part of the fourth edition of the Urvanity Art Fair.

To decorate the lecture hall, London-based studio Pareid installed red neon lighting and sourced the same corrugated PVC tubes that are often used in construction to protect wires or form drainage pipes.

These were draped around the room and its three large columns in a bid to draw attention to the hidden network of wires, cables and pipes, which is constantly transferring physical matter and digital data across the globe.

"The language of excess, fluidity, connectivity and transmission are rendered in this space through the use of three materials: tubes, lights and metal," Pareid founders Déborah López and Hadin Charbel told Dezeen.

"Lining the walls, ceiling and parts of the floor, visitors are immersed in the machine-like organs and red glow – all of which are familiar and at the same time alien."

Instead of permanent adhesive, Pareid used clamps and straps to suspend the tubes in various arrangments around the room.

"The [Urvanity Art Fair] lasted for three days, meaning the installation had to be able to be mounted quickly and ephemerally," explained López and Charbel. "As it occupied the room of an existing building, it also had to leave no trace behind."

During the festival, a small bar and a central seating area were placed in the room to host a range of public talks, conferences and social gatherings.

Afterwards, Pareid donated the corrugated tubes to a small construction company in a nearby town, which has since used them to protect the electrical wires in one of its recent buildings.

"The project aims to tackle issues surrounding temporary installations and the construction industry's waste as well as people's appreciation for certain aspects of the built environment," said López and Charbel.

"These tubes are things everyone needs and values but at the same time, they are visually unappreciated and thus hidden underground," the designers added.

"They are indeed the aesthetic rejects of what most people experience as architecture. By foregrounding them as the elements that allow our contemporary urban and rural lives to seamlessly operate, visitors are met with an element they usually do not care to see."

Pareid is known for its multidisciplinary approach to architecture and design. The studio has previously made a textile from human hair to measure urban pollution and built a brightly coloured classroom in Thailand around two funnels for harvesting rainwater.

The photography is by Javier de Paz García.

The Urvanity Art Fair was on show at the College of Architects of Madrid from 24 to 27 February 2022. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Two rooms – one white and one green – make up this striking colour-block pastry shop that architecture and interiors studio Casa Antillón has completed in Madrid.

The layout of Cara Mela naturally lends itself to having distinctly different coloured rooms, according to local studio Casa Antillón.

"From the beginning, we had a vision of a spatial cascade of rooms separated by colour-contrasted openings on the walls," the studio told Dezeen.

"It was very suitable with the architecture of the existing building, since the floor goes down from the entrance to the back of the shop."

Upon entering the pastry shop, which is located in Madrid's Chamberi neighbourhood, customers are welcomed into an all-white room.

The space is dominated by an angular stainless steel unit, incorporating a high counter where customers can stand and eat, a handwashing station and a glass display case that shows off Cara Mela's sweet treats.

This front room narrows slightly before opening up to reveal a seating area at the back of the shop. Casa Antillón nicknamed the two spaces after the different phases of a heartbeat – systole and diastole.

"Systole and diastole are the heart's movements of contraction and expansion," explained the studio. "For us, it refers to this spatial game where one space contracts and drags the visitor in, while the other expands letting the same visitor relax in the lounge."

The rear room was finished entirely in a rich sea-green hue save for the steps leading down into the space, which are clad in white tiles to create the impression of the front room "spilling" into the back of the shop.

Dotted throughout the space are a few wriggly-edged tables balanced on slim metal legs, which are also sea green.

Right at the back of the room is a small window that looks through to the kitchen. Its ledge and inner frame are coated in a glossy, bright-red paint reminiscent of caramelised apples – one of the most popular offerings on Cara Mela's menu.

The same shade of red was also applied to the shop's front door.

Founded in 2019, Casa Antillón is led by architects Marta Ochoa, Ismael López, Emmanuel Álvarez and Yosi Negrín.

Cara Mela isn't the first project the studio has completed in its hometown of Madrid. Elsewhere in the Spanish capital, the studio has designed Mood, a trendy hair salon with a galvanised steel facade.

The photography is by Imagen Subliminal.

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Spanish studio Casa Antillón has incorporated galvanised steel elements throughout this hair salon in Madrid, which features bold mint-green ceilings sprayed with insulation foam.

Prior to becoming the Mood hair salon, the five-by-ten-metre unit was an empty shell with barely finished walls and floors.

Casa Antillón was tasked with finding a simple yet effective way to make this blank space more visually impactful.

The studio, which is led by Marta Ochoa, Ismael López, Emmanuel Álvarez and Yosi Negrín, responded by completely covering the facade of the salon and large swathes of its interior with sheets of galvanised steel.

"It was the client's proposal to work with an old friend of their family who is a construction expert in metallic solutions," Casa Antillón told Dezeen.

"The project aims for a maximum exploitation of the resources to build an iconic and quality space."

Steel was used to line the salon's street-facing wall and a deep-set box seat that was constructed around the front window.

Metal panels also cover the rear wall, camouflaging a pair of silver-coloured doors that lead to the staff office and customer toilet.

Most of Mood's remaining surfaces are finished in a complementary shade of light grey, while the ceiling was sprayed with insulation foam to create a bumpy texture and painted mint green.

Casa Antillón applied the same colour to the salon's support columns and the thick ceiling beam that runs along the length of the interior in order to "accentuate its longitudinal axis".

Sectioned off from the rest of the floor plan by curved steel screens, one side of the salon is given over to a dye lab where staff can mix up unique hair colours.

The other side of the room houses a trio of arched backlit mirrors, each accompanied by a black styling chair.

Just behind are a couple of hair washing stations and a slim steel shelf that holds shampoos and conditioners.

Towards the front of the salon there's also a small waiting area, dressed with shapely black armchairs and a metal-framed coffee table.

Other striking hair salons include Qali in Vancouver, which was designed by Studio Roslyn to evoke the mood of 1980s Miami, and Mitch Studio in Melbourne, which designer Danielle Brustman outfitted with sunny yellow interiors.

The photography is by Imagen Subliminal.

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Barcelona-based gallery Il-lacions has opened an exhibition at Madrid Design Festival that features over 70 furnishings, sculptures and design pieces in an effort to explore contemporary design.

The theme of the exhibition is centred around its name, Inferences/Inferencias, which Il-lacions described as "the action and effect of inferring one thing from another, a link between ideas, the consequence of something."

The gallery selected one piece of work by each of the artists it represents, who were then asked to become co-curators of the exhibition and invite a designer, maker or artist whom they admired to also exhibit a piece of work.

The resulting 74 sculptures and furniture pieces displayed in the exhibition were arranged on and around a large angular display table that was finished to mimic concrete.

All of the works in the show focus on one or more topics specified by the gallery, such as research and development in new materials, object functionality, sustainability and production processes.

"We would like to arouse curiosity towards contemporary design, visitors can read about the pieces and even touch them with care," Il-lacions founder Xavier Franquesa told Dezeen. "We would like them to learn about materials, functionality and ingenuity in design."

"We hope people understand the amount of work behind each piece, there’s a lot of research and experimentation," said Franquesa.

"These are inspirational objects that contribute to giving interiors something more than just a function, they are emotional and unique," it added.

"We would like to stimulate new views on design and thinking to shape contemporary values, and together with the creators to generate a cultural heritage that reflects this time and this place," he said.

Among the pieces on display is Joel Blanco's Shiba-Inu dog sculpture with a built-in ASIC cryptocurrency miner. This uses the exhibition space's electricity to mine Dogecoin and is a commentary on financial freedom and an anarcho-capitalist future, according to the designer.

Also exhibited is a Jesmonite and fibreglass chair by Six N. Five, embedded with an authentication chip built on Blockchain technology that allows the piece to be minted as an NFT.

A number of the works on show also feature reused and recycled materials.

"Josep Vila Capdevila is reusing pieces from old factories (fluorescents, cables, a pulley) and he mixes it with noble materials such as marble to create the Suspended Lamp exhibited – he classifies this piece as 'Random Luxury'," said Franquesa.

"The 'Aluminium Block' side table by Toni Pallejà is reinterpreting industrial materials, transforming them into elements that convey luxury and fashion."

Il-lacions was founded in 2011 by Xavier Franquesa. Inferences/Inferencias forms part of the fifth edition of Madrid Design Festival, a month-long event that transforms the city into a design hub.

Also exhibited at this year's edition is a light installation by Antoni Arola that forms architecture from light. Previous editions saw Jorge Penadés invite 14 designers to showcase "bold ideas in small boxes".

The photography is by Asier Rua.

Inferences/Inferencias is on display at the Cultural Centre of Villa Fernán-Gómez as part of Madrid Design Festival, which takes place from 15 February to 13 March 2022. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Lighting designer Antoni Arola and Spanish light manufacturer Simon have created an installation named Fiat Lux.3 Architectures of Light at Madrid Design Festival.

Fiat Lux.3 Architectures of Light was created by Arola in collaboration with Simon within the Cultural Centre of Villa Fernán-Gómez using a smoke machine, lasers and objects including a small tree to create "non-existent spaces".

"Fiat Lux is an ongoing project, an immersive proposal to awaken the sense and consciousness, with the desire to make the visitor feel part of an illusion," said Arola.

"Architecture is created from light. Light as a building material. Non-existent spaces appear out of nowhere, mutate, mix, cut, dialogue and fade away."

The exhibition hall was filled with smoke at timed intervals with a number of lasers positioned on lighting stands used to create two-dimensional planes of light that slice through the smoke.

These two-dimensional planes formed walls of light, which the designer describes as construction elements that change and move as it is interrupted by objects and passing visitors.

"The function is a free journey through space both to contemplate the scenes and to actively interact with the physical elements and volumes that appear and disappear," said Arola.

"This set-up is designed to invoke unique sensations and emotions in each visitor and showcase light as a creative element with a great ability to transform," added Simon.

A tree forms a focal point for the exhibition and is fitted to a motorised base that slowly spins and rotates. Lasers were positioned facing the tree and pan side-to-side to create piercing strips of light as the planes come into contact with the tree's rotating branches.

Wooden panels suspended from the ceiling and the equipment stands also interrupt the light paths to create openings within the spaces.

A soundscape by Mans O was paired with the light installation to provide visitors with an immersive experience.

The installation forms part of an ongoing project with Arola and Simon that evolves and adapts to different spaces as it moves location. It was previously shown at Catalonia's Lluèrnia festival in 2021.

At the 2019 edition of Madrid Design Festival, Jorge Penadés tasked 14 international designers with creating objects no larger than a shoebox and Barcelona-based designer Guillermo Santomà installed a series of sculptural structures inside a baroque-style mansion.

Fiat Lux.3 Architectures of Light is on display at the Cultural Centre of Villa Fernán-Gómez as part of Madrid Design Festival, which takes place from 15 February to 13 March 2022. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Spanish architecture studio Takk has pulled back the walls of an apartment in Madrid to create an outdoor terrace alongside an insulated space that contains a bedroom on stilts.

Takk removed all of the 110-square-metre flat's interior walls to create a new 60-square-metre space enclosed with insulated pinewood walls, dubbed the winter house.

This space contains an open-plan kitchen and living room as well as a self-enclosed bedroom perched on stilts, which is designed to be shared by a couple and their young daughter.

Both the bedroom and the flat's new exterior walls are made from low-carbon, heat-retaining materials, with pinewood frames sourced from Spain's famed winemaking region of La Rioja and insulation made from duvets and charred cork.

Takk nested the spaces in the winter house inside each other like the "layers of an onion" to retain heat and conserve energy during the colder months.

Alongside the apartment, the studio created an exterior terrace by relocating the external walls and removing the previous north-facing windows.

Named the summer house, this space is connected to the inner areas of the home by sliding glass doors.

According to the studio this arrangement eliminates the need for air-conditioning by passively cooling the interior and helping to lower the apartment's carbon emissions in operation.

"Climate change will modify all the routines of our existence," Takk co-founder Mireia Luzárraga told Dezeen. "The way we think and build our environments should also adapt to this new situation."

"The project tests possible ways of organising a house to minimise energy consumption while using materials with a low carbon footprint."

From the outside, the door leading to the apartment looks like any other in the residential block. But on the interior of the flat, the entrance is hidden inside a built-in shelving system that runs along one side of the winter house.

A similar storage wall is mirrored on the other side of the open-plan space, forming a low counter that functions as a kitchen worktop on one side and a dining table and work desk on the other.

Like most surfaces in the winter house, this is almost entirely clad in blackened cork panelling, which stores carbon and holds onto heat in the winter due to its colour and porous structure.

In contrast, the summer house external space is finished with cement mortar, which doesn't hold onto heat from the sun during the warmer months.

This outdoor area consists of a narrow plant-filled porch that runs along the apartment's entire north-facing wall to maximise natural light.

At one end, it opens up into a covered terrace, separated from the interior by a pinewood wall with a row of tall vertical vents that can be opened to create a through-draft.

In summer, the space can be shielded from the sun by an aluminium-foil thermal curtain normally used in greenhouses, while folding glass doors allow it to be turned into a kind of winter garden once temperatures drop.

On the other side of the folding doors lies a balcony housing a speckled bathtub, which is shielded from view only by a sheer pink gossamer curtain.

This bathroom is designed to be used only in summer and by multiple members of the family at the same time, much like the open-plan living area and bedroom.

"The aim is to test the benefits, both energetic and emotional, of sleeping, playing or working together," said Takk's other half Alejandro Muiño.

"In the past, rooms used to be bigger because they were communal and easier to heat. We want to recover this popular knowledge that was forgotten due to the emergence of cheap energy."

The stilted bedroom is the warmest part and the centrepiece of the home contained within the cork-panelled winter house and fitted with an extra layer of insulation in the form of duvets.

These are strapped to the outside of the pinewood box alongside garlands of fake flowers, while huge stones from a quarry outside Madrid dangle from the ceiling, acting as a structural counterweight to prevent the thin wooden panel from bending.

On the inside, the bedroom is entirely panelled in pinewood and split over two levels.

"The advantages of sleeping together are countless, both for climatic and energy-saving reasons and for the reinforcement of emotional links," Takk explained.

"Elevating the bedroom also allows the kitchen to be more present in the daily routine of the residents because it is visible from any part of the house, which helps fight the gender and class cliches associated with these kinds of spaces."

Although elevated rooms such as this are rarely found in interiors, a number of architects have raised entire homes up on stilts in a bid to tread lightly on their surrounding environment.

Dezeen has rounded up 10 of the most impressive examples, from a cork-clad cabin above a tidal salt marsh to a summer house perched on the rocky edge of a Norwegian island.

The photography is by José Hevia.

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Dogs aren't the only animals to get special treatment in this colourful canine training centre near Madrid, which also includes homes for birds and bats.

Educan is a building designed by two Spanish architects, Eeestudio founder Enrique Espinosa and Lys Villalba, with biodiversity in mind.

The building is referred to as "a school for dogs, humans and other species".

It primarily offers training for both dogs and dog trainers, but also accommodates various "companion species" that support the natural ecosystem of the local area.

Small birds and bats feed on insects such as mosquitoes, which can carry canine diseases, while also contributing to local pollination cycles. Meanwhile birds of prey help to keep rodent populations under control.

Villalba said the aim was to create a building that helps nature to thrive.

"Sitting amongst fields, in a rural environment transformed over recent decades by urban development and intensive pesticide-reliant agriculture, Educan is trialling ways to recover the conditions of the ecosystem," she said.

Constructed from extra-large shipping containers, the 300-square-metre Educan has warehouse-like proportions.

Organised over one storey, it is divided up into three spaces that include a training area that can be easily subdivided, a classroom and a reception area containing a kitchen and toilet facilities.

The clients, Eva Alda Cano and Marcos González, share the building with two German Shepherds, Bicho and Bomba. It is currently also occupied by 20 sparrows, six kestrel families, five swift families and a barn owl named Harris.

The building's design offers facilities for all of these different users.

The flooring is a concrete aggregate that incorporates river pebbles, to make it better suitable for dog paws, while rolls of synthetic turf can be laid down in the training rooms.

Pyramid foam insulation creates a layer of soundproofing against loud barks, while windows are positioned at heights that suit both dogs and trainers.

"The average eye height drops from over a metre and a half, to just half a metre," said Villalba.

"Interior openings are raised to heights of more than one metre to avoid doggy distractions, while louvred window shutters shade the south facade, leaving enough space below for dog traffic to the outside," she said.

High ceilings create plenty of perches for the building's bird residents, and each species also has its own dedicated nesting area.

Nests for bats are located in a more surprising location.

They are located within the six chunky letters that spell out Educan on the building's facade.

The building also integrates rainwater harvesting, providing water-filled troughs for the use of all animal species.

Educan is brought to life by a vibrant colour palette that includes shades of red, yellow, blue and mint green.

These colours help to bring homogeneity to a highly textured palette of industrial materials, which includes corrugated metal, steel beams, exposed service ducts and pyramid-shaped foam insulation.

Bespoke details riff on these elements, for instance, the wiggle-edge plywood seating and the large circular windows.

"Educan is an experiment that demonstrates how agricultural architecture can also be a place of exploration and architectural innovation," added Villalba.

Other recent buildings designed with dogs in mind include the Canine and Feline Hotel in Portugal and the Ohio office of dog toy brand and treats brand Bark.

The photography is by Javier de Paz García and José Hevia, as indicated.

Project credits

Architects: Enrique Espinosa (Eeestudio), Lys Villalba.
Client: Adiestramiento Educan
Construction company: Servicios Integrales Alji / Construcciones Metálicas Miguel Torrejón
Building engineer: Javier Reñones Marín
Structural engineer: Mecanismo
Building services engineer: Alberto Espinosa
Technical consultant: Jorge López Hidalgo
Collaborators: Maria Paola Marciano, Irene Domínguez

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Inexpensive materials such as salvaged plywood feature in a compact apartment in Madrid that has been overhauled by Spanish firm CumuloLimbo Studio.

The project, called UpHouse, entailed an extensive redesign of a small apartment in Madrid's Hortaleza district.

The clients, a young couple, wanted to create more space by raising the apartment's ceiling and adding a second level. They turned to local firm CumuloLimbo Studio to design the fit-out. The project had a tight budget of $39,000 (£28,334).

To prevent the unit from feeling too dark and cramped, the studio suggested adding a mezzanine rather than a full floor.

"UpHouse is the tale of an implant – the introduction of a space of intimate scale into another space, which, within a domestic diagram, is exposed and social," said the architects.

The team removed the plasterboard ceiling and, over a central bathroom, inserted the loft space, which holds a bed, closet and vanity.

The loft is supported by steel columns and beams, which were left exposed. The floor and walls are clad in deconstructed, plywood shipping crates that were once used to transport electronic equipment.

The sides overlooking the lower level of the apartment were left open, with the exception of a few cables.

The loft is accessed via an unusual staircase that terminates atop a kitchen counter. To reach the floor, a black step stool can be pulled up to the counter and stashed away when not in use.

The new mezzanine divides UpHouse's ground level into distinct zones.

"The new upper floor divides the apartment into two spaces, a private and a public function," the team said. "The choice of materials for these two spaces reflects this duality."

To the east is a revamped kitchen and living area, where white walls reflect light from an adjoining patio, creating a bright atmosphere.

The cooking area features a new, open shelving system. Black tiles were cleverly arranged to form a graphic backsplash.

The other side of the unit holds a music studio. Plywood-covered walls lend an intimate feel to the space.

Getting light into the upper level of UpHouse was a significant concern. In response, the team hung an installation in the music studio composed of mirror-lined, wooden slats.

"In order to maximise natural light in the new upper level, a mirror-faced wood vault is built in the private side," the team said. "Natural light is reflected and multiplied with a great visual effect."

The team also updated the apartment's bathroom by adding geometric tiles and a new vanity.

Other apartments in Madrid include a unit by Nomos inside an old workshop that features tactile bricks and pinewood partitions, and a plywood-lined apartment by Husos Arquitectos that totals 46 square metres.

Photography is by Javier de Paz García.

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A towering, floor-to-ceiling bookshelf made from 100 pieces of CNC-cut pine creeps up one side of this writer's cabin in the north of Madrid by Mudd Architects.

The Barcelona-based practice was commissioned to create a studio in the garden of a local children's book author that could serve as a source of inspiration for her future books.

Longlisted in the small building category at this year's Dezeen Awards, the cabin features an asymmetrical pitched roof clad in oxidised iron that is bookended by a wall of glass on either side.

Its interior is panelled in dark maple wood to contrast against the lighter pine that was used to form the parametrically designed bookshelf, which curves up towards the ceiling, following the line of the gabled roof.

In order to determine the most efficient and discreet construction for this storage wall, Mudd Architects worked with a digital fabrication studio in Girona to test different assembly methods.

"The most challenging part but also one of the most important parts of the house is the highly complex, curvy bookshelf adapted to the very specific, high sloped roofs of the house," the studio explained.

"These bookshelves create a sensation of movement, held still in time, where the heavy weight of both the horizontals and verticals is counterbalancing the weight of the high roof."

The cabin's generous glass walls provide expansive views into the garden, helping to bring the outdoors inside. To further enhance this connection, the terrace features the same wooden floor as the interior.

The interior is sparsely furnished and heated by a black cast-iron stove, which hangs from the highest point of the roof.

Dimmable LED lighting emphasises the expansive volume of the roof and the perimeter of the terrace, while smaller spotlights are placed inside the bookshelves.

A third, narrow window at the centre of the iron facade provides additional natural light.

Other projects longlisted in the small building category of the 2021 Dezeen Awards include a bridge built by robots, a woven bamboo canopy and a cabin hotel in Jiangxi formed from zoomorphic pods on stilts.

Photography is by Nacho Villa.

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A vacant natural-gas plant in Madrid, Spain is set to be overhauled by Foster + Partners to create the plant-filled and timber-lined Acciona Ombú offices.

The abandoned industrial building, constructed in 1905 by Spanish architect Luis de Landecho, will be retrofitted with 10,000 square-metres of workspace for the sustainable infrastructure company Acciona.

Foster + Partners' overhaul, set to complete in 2022, focuses largely on the restoration of the building's brick envelope – which will preserve over 10,000 tonnes of material.

Inside, it will introduce a series of staggered floors made from locally-sourced timber, which will give rise to a series of terraces.

According to the studio, this is intended as "a sustainable exemplar for building reuse" while reflecting the ethos of its new owner.

"This project offers the rare opportunity to give this magnificent building a new lease of life," said Nigel Dancey, head of studio at Foster + Partners.

"It is a great example of the Luis de Landecho's early twentieth-century work, and our design aims to retain its original spirit while creating a workplace that is flexible and adaptable to new and emerging ways of working," he explained.

"Together with Acciona, we have developed a design that is underpinned by our shared vision of sustainability and demonstrates our commitment towards the environment."

Timber was chosen as the primary material for the office's interiors as it has a low carbon footprint and is easily recyclable, adaptable and demountable.

With the help of plants and trees, it is also hoped to boost employee wellbeing and productivity by contributing to "a biophilic environment" – meaning it will increase the occupants' connectivity to nature.

Acciona Ombú's interiors will be complete with a large, central skylight and silicon solar panels that work in tandem to maximise natural light while reducing artificial lighting demands.

Outside, an adjoining sheltered "courtyard" will be introduced, which will double as ground floor office space and lead out into a 10,000 square-metre park.

The park will be filled with 300 local tree species, selected to reduce water consumption, between which outdoor workspaces and informal meeting areas will be nestled.

Foster + Partners will also carry out landscaping of the surrounding area and introduce a mix of private and public green spaces that will extend to the nearby Méndez Álvaro metro station.

Foster + Partners was founded in 1967 by British architect Norman Foster. It has offices around the world but its headquarters remain in London, UK.

The designs for Acciona Ombú follows its reveal of an international airport it is currently constructing in Saudi Arabia as part of The Red Sea Project tourist development, for which it has also designed a stilted ring-shaped hotel in the Red Sea and a resort on sand dunes.

The studio's design of airports has recently come under fire, in light of the climate crisis, which has prompted it to withdraw from the climate change action group Architects Declare. It argues, however, that architects should be involved in designing more sustainable airports for the aviation sector.

Visuals are courtesy of Foster + Partners.

Project credits:

Architect: Foster + Partners
Client: Acciona Inmobiliaria
Design team: Nigel Dancey, Taba Rasti, Pablo Urango, Emilio Ortiz Zaforas, Lucas Mazarrasa Chavari, Alfonso Aracil Sánchez, Sergio Canas Vadillo, Eduardo Cilleruelo, Alex Duro López, Miguel García Jiménez, Cesidio García del Río, María Soriano Rementería, Chris Trott, Arpan Bakshi, María de Miguel Garrido, Julia Pérez Torres, Martha Tsigkari, Sherif Tarabishy, Stamatios Psarras, Irene Gallou, Carlos Bausa Martínez, Byron Mardas, Alessandro Ranaldi, Martin Glover, Sarah Villar-Furniss, Luke Herring, Valeria de Giuli and Giulia Zanotti
Collaborating architect: Ortiz León arquitectos
Main contractor: Acciona Construcción
Structural consultant: Acciona Ingeniería
Mechanical engineers: JG ingenieros
Landscape consultant: K8 Paisajismo
Lighting engineers: Artec 3
Timber structure: Enmadera (Miguel Nevado)
Facade: ENAR (Envolventes Arquitectónicas)
Acoustics: Margarida
Planning consultant: Addient
Traffic consultant: Clothos + Vectio

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Roberto Conte's latest photography series explores Madrid's brutalist architecture to draw attention to a style not usually associated with the Spanish capital.

The photographer, whose work often depicts concrete modernist and brutalist buildings, captured a selection of Madrileño brutalism that includes the Torres Blancas by Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oíz and a Le Corbusier-informed church by Cecilio Sanchez-Robles Taríns.

Conte first visited Madrid in 2008, when he was struck by the city's "vibrant energy" as well as its architecture, and returned last year.

"In the summer of quite a challenging year, 2020, I had a job assignment in the Castile region and I considered it also as a great opportunity to finally dedicate some time to discover more of this beautiful city," he told Dezeen.

"I did some research before leaving and I was amazed by the architecture I was finding, which is way less known than it deserves to be."

He decided to capture Madrid's architecture, with a specific focus on brutalism as Conte felt it hadn't been fully documented previously.

"I focused on brutalism in particular both because it's a 'concrete line' that has driven my personal research for many years and because it's a term that usually not associated with Madrid," he explained.

"The city that automatically triggers other associations and that makes it even more interesting in my point of view."

Nearly all the buildings in the series were built by architects who were from Spain, and sometimes from the city itself. They were largely constructed in the 1960s, 70s and 80s in "a period of gradual and progressive liberation of Spain from Francoism," said Conte.

Dictator Francisco Franco ruled Spain from 1939 until 1975 after overthrowing the democratic republic in the Spanish Civil War.

The oldest and probably best-known building in the series is the Torres Blancas, designed in 1961 and initially meant to be part of a pair.

The 71-metre-high building, with its cylindrical details that lend it an organic feel, is Conte's own favourite.

"It's an incredible building, with cylindrical elements that intersect each other in an ascensional progression that is reminiscent of some Japanese metabolist solutions," Conte said. "Moreover, each detail of the building is absolutely interesting."

To do it justice, Conte came back and shot the tower at different times of the day, a method he also used for the Cultural Heritage Institute of Spain by Fernando Higueras Díaz and Antonio Miró Valverde.

Conte believes the imposing building (top image), nicknamed Corona del Espinosas or Crown of Thorns for its unusual crowning, is one of the buildings that best represent brutalism in Spain.

Díaz and Valverde are also behind another project in the series, the residential Edificio Princesa. The architects created the building, which has wide horizontal balconies and a facade softened by hanging gardens, together with Carlos García Rodríguez in 1967.

Conte's series has 21 images in total and features a mix of educational buildings, company headquarters such as the 1966 IBM office building, residential complexes, and even ecclesiastical architecture.

Tarín's Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Filipina is shown from both the exterior, with its large concrete fins and a stylised cross, and interior, which has a decorative undulating roof and a clever light-effect that illuminates the altar.

A similar solution was used for the other church in the series, the church of Santa Ana y la Esperanza by Miguel Fisac Serna.

All the projects featured are made by Spanish architects, apart from the Los Cubos building by the French team of Michel Andrault, Pierre Parat, Aydin Guvan and Alain Capieu.

"The building, with clear metabolist influences, may evoke the Ministry of Highway Construction (now headquarters of the Bank of Georgia) built in the same years in Tbilisi, back then Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic," Conte notes.

Though the other architects in the series are all Spanish, Conte points out that their designs, too, were globally informed.

"The political situation probably helped to assign the design of those buildings to local architects, but each of them had his very personal story, and – at the same time – each of them was strongly influenced by how modern and brutalist architecture was developing in the rest of the world," he said.

Roberto Conte has been an architecture photographer since 2006 and is based in Italy. His previous work includes a series showcasing Le Corbusier's concrete buildings in Chandigarh and photos of post-war architecture in Georgia.

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Madrid-based Husos Architects has designed a compact timber cabin near Madrid for one of its co-founders that aims to be sustainable and sensitive to its pine forest setting.

Named (Synanthro)Love Shack, (Tele)Working Abode, the cabin was created for Husos Architects co-founder Diego Barajas and his partner as a place for them both to live and work.

Husos Architects designed the home, which is part of a housing development in a woodland area, to have the smallest footprint for its two occupants to live comfortably while aiming to have a low impact on the pine forest ecosystem.

"We understand this project as an ensemble of architecture for human and non-human animals, that together form a path towards exploring ways of caring for the biological and social diversity of an urban forest ecosystem that include realities that are often undervalued and neglected," Barajas told Dezeen.

"That is the case of moths, gay families, migrant domesticities, or some of the construction challenges of architecture regarding the current climate emergency," he continued.

The project aims to both radically reduce the ecological footprint of suburban housing and imagine other forms of coexistence with the surrounding fauna.

To reduce the Love Shack's environmental impact Husos Architects reduced its size by designing multifunctional rooms and furniture, and taking advantage of both indoor and outdoor spaces.

"We designed the house to be transformed to encompass the various different uses of a larger house within a relatively small footing," explained Barajas.

"First, we did that by rethinking domestic spaces such as the bedroom or the roof, parts of the home space often underused; second, by multiplying its uses by means of designing a few easily transformable furniture pieces; and third, allowing for domestic life to occur within varying degrees of interiority and exteriority."

The house has two main living spaces divided by a bathroom topped with the main sleeping space, which is accessed by an inbuilt ladder and opens onto the kitchen.

Described by the studio as the "heart of the cabin", this four-metre-high kitchen contains a seating area and is connected to an outdoor terrace that is enclosed in a metal cage.

A second, multifunctional room can be used as an office, gym, dining room or guest bedroom, and is flanked by a mirror-fronted wardrobe. It has a collapsable table that can be hung on the wall when not in use and a sideboard that contains a foldable bed.

All of the interior spaces were panelled with oriented strand board (OSB).

With sustainability in mind, the cabin was constructed from a prefabricated solid pinewood structure sourced from responsibly-managed forests in Soria, about 250 kilometres from the site.

It is topped with a roof terrace described by the studio as an "open-air living room", which is wrapped in a chain-metal fence decorated with small pieces of purple-painted timber.

"The house recreates imaginary fragments of the South American landscape through the lilac and purple tones reminiscent of the Jacaranda mimosifolia, which – like us – originates in those landscapes, bringing them into dialogue with those of the Western Sierra of Madrid," explained Barajas.

"The perforated upper floor facade painted in those tones offers intimacy, and at the same time representation for our non-heteronormative, transnational family."

Throughout the project Husos Architects aimed to integrate the building into the woodland setting, adding a series of bird feeders, nesting boxes and water fountains for birds.

"Our approach to the natural environment has been through a socio-bioclimatic cabin as well as other, small animal architectures for birds and bats that feed on a defining agent in this ecosystem: the pine processionary moth," said Barajas.

Barajas said the project aims to demonstrate the studio's concept of 'interwoven architecture'.

"
For us, this project is an exploration of designing according to a concept we have been working with for years, namely, 'interwoven architecture', based in Latin-American decolonial feminist thinking, in which environmental and social issues are understood together," he explained.

"If we look at the history of the colonisation of the biosphere, we can see that the violence against nature and other species has often been accompanied by other forms of violence towards our own species, towards racialised people, women, non-heteronormative bodies and others," he continued.

"It is not only about inclusion of different forms of existence; but also, about the search for other, less painful, more pleasant ways of living."

Husos Architects, which was founded in 2003 by Barajas and Camilo Garcia, is based in Madrid and operates between Spain and Colombia. The studio has previously designed a plywood-lined apartment for a young doctor and his pet bulldog and added a plant-filled "bathyard" to apartments in Madrid.

Photography is by Luis Díaz Díaz unless stated.

Project credits

Architect: Husos Architects
Team: Diego Barajas and Camilo García with Aníbal Arenas, Almudena Tenorio, Giulia Poma, Álvaro Heredia, Agustina Zaratiegui, Iván Parra, Natasa Lekkou, Francesca Alessandro, Mónica Román and Raquel Herrera
Landscaping: currently underway by Husos with Fábrica de Texturas and the collaboration of Aristides Mettas, Marta Amírola, Joao Manfrinato, Petra Sebova, Jeronime Doise, Daniel Prieto, Elena Taliano, Ilaria Sasdelli and Elena del Cura
Textiles: Candelas. Special thanks to Pepo Ruiz.
Text: Camilo García and Diego Barajas.
English translation: Medina Whiteman.
Client: This is a house for Diego Barajas, one of the architects of this project, his partner and their transnational family.
Photography: Luis Díaz Díaz and Impresiones Cotidianas.

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Spanish firm Plantea Estudio has layered "light and warm" materials such as plywood and chipboard to create the interior of this Madrid street food restaurant.

Called Zuppa, the eaterie is located on one of the city centre's main streets, the Calle de Atocha, and occupies a commercial space that was previously home to an Indian takeaway.

The 127-square-metre restaurant offers a menu of street food and homemade soups, which can be taken to go or eaten inside of a small, informal dining area.

Plantea Estudio restored the original storefront, which had been altered by the previous owners, and installed bespoke pivoting doors with frames made of plywood and iron, and topped with marble handles.

For the interior, the firm said it selected materials in "light and warm tones" to create a feeling of continuity and make the space appear larger.

Although similar in colouring, the materials were chosen for their different textural qualities, with micro-cement and plywood boards forming the walls and floors while chipboard was used to panel the ceiling.

"The light from the outside envelops them in such a way, that the limits between one and the other blur and the space is expanded to the maximum," explained the architects.

In contrast to the soft beige tones of the walls and floors, the studio installed furniture and fittings made from black lacquered steel with "geometric and precise" forms.

Much of this was designed specifically for the project, including a large communal table made from solid oak and finished with a sanded steel top.

Placed in the centre of the space, it helps to channel the flow of customers between the two entrance doors.

Two built-in, upholstered benches run along the walls on either side, paired with rows of lacquered steel tables and oak stools.

In the space beyond, two high tables with a steel base and grey Ruivina marble top sit in front of a serving counter made from these same materials and illuminated through integrated lighting.

Here, customers can eat their food either standing or seated on one of the bar stools with their oak veneer seats.

"All of these elements are introduced into a space where the floor and walls are finished in the same colour, so it looks like they are 'floating' in a warm atmosphere," Plantea Estudio director Luis Gill told Dezeen.

"The materials that are touched by hand are kind and solid, always pleasant."

The illusion of objects levitating in space is carried through to the toilets, where a marble sink and soap dispenser are suspended from the walls.

The interior's neutral colour scheme chimes with paint brand Dulux's choice of colour of the year for 2021 – a "reassuring" earthy beige called Brave Gound.

Dulux argued that this "elemental" shade reflects "our growing desire to align more with the planet and looking towards the future".

Plantea Estudio, which was shortlisted for emerging interior design practice of the year at the 2019 Dezeen Awards, has previously transformed a defunct erotic cinema into an art-nouveau theatre.

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Spanish practice Smart & Green Design has re-designed the Barbican's touring Game On exhibition for a former underground cistern in Madrid, using more than 150 LED arches to evoke the neon colours of the 1980s.

The retrospective, which is reportedly the largest international exhibition to explore the history of video games, spans more than 400 collector's objects and drawings covering the birth of the technology in the 1960s to the present day.

Alongside this, 150 original video games can be played as part of the show, including early games like Space Invaders and Tetris, classics like Rock Band, Pokemon and The Sims as well as more recent games like Fifa and Wii Sports.

After touring more than 30 countries including China, the US and Australia, the exhibition came to Madrid between November 2019 and May 2020 courtesy of arts and culture foundation Fundación Canal.

Game On's revamped set-up, which won Smart & Green Design the public vote at this year's Dezeen Awards in the exhibition design category, relied heavily on multicoloured LED tubes suspended throughout the exhibition space.

Set against an otherwise dimly lit interior, these nodded to the vector graphics of early video games such as Battle Zone, in which simple lines and curves on a black backdrop were used to create the illusion of three-dimensional spaces.

LEDs were arranged into colour-coded arches and tunnels to create the impression of architectural elements, demarcating 15 distinct sections and guiding visitors through the exhibition.

"The design follows simple geometries and repetitions as some of the most famous video games did," Smart & Green Design's founder Fernando Muñoz told Dezeen.

"These lines created perspectives and the illusion of a 3D space, despite all the elements being two dimensional."

Each section was also signposted through a neon sign proclaiming its theme, which was suspended in the air in a nod to the floating score numbers often found in the top corner of a game's screen.

The main challenge for the studio was to balance the buzz and excitement of an arcade with the kind of quiet, contemplative spaces needed to take in the archival objects, sketches and the stories behind them.

For this purpose, Muñoz developed two distinct spatial typologies.

While stations for playing the games were placed inside of the cistern's existing 7.5-metre tall brick arches, each illuminated by an LED frame, the remaining exhibits were housed in "lights tunnels", running perpendicularly to the arches.

"We designed several tunnels using rectangular timber frames with lights integrated into them," said Muñoz.

"The rhythm of these structures created the feeling of being inside a separate space and they also hold either walls or vitrines to show the contents."

To create these walls, the studio opted for sound-absorbing panels, which had the dual benefit of muffling the noise coming from the gaming area outside as well as being easier to reuse for future exhibitions.

"We try not to use heavy resources like MDF or drywall, which cannot be reused without generating waste and need a lot of energy both in the assembly and disassembly," said Muñoz.

"We try to create lightweight systems that are easily assembled and stored and with standardised dimensions so that they can be reused and adapted to any space or design."

In order to offset the high embodied energy of the LEDs, Muñoz designed the lighting system to be modular, with tubes that are either half a metre, one metre or two metres long, so that they can be efficiently stored and repurposed again and again in different constellations.

This is part of the studio's wider strategy to try and cut down the amount of waste produced through temporary installations.

"The exhibitions industry is responsible for a huge amount of waste due to the ephemeral condition of its products," Muñoz explained.

"We believe that through design and longterm strategies of collaborating with exhibition organisers, waste can be reduced. We have designed our own carbon calculator and tailored protocols to interact with the administration and coordinators in the exhibitions world."

Aside from Game On, other exhibition designs shortlisted for Dezeen Awards 2020 include a memorial filled with items that belonged to victims of gun violence and an installation at Fondazione Prada with 1,400 porcelain plates suspended from the walls of a golden room.

Although the recipients of the public vote have already been determined, the winners of the official Dezeen Awards, judged by a panel of experts including Norman Foster, Michelle Ogundehin and Konstantin Grcic, will not be announced until the end of November.

The Game On exhibition took place from 29 November 2019 to 31 May 2020 at Madrid's Castellana 214. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Tactile bricks and pinewood partitions decorate the La Nave apartment, which Nomos has slotted into the concrete shell of a disused workshop in Madrid, Spain.

La Nave was developed by Nomos as a family home for two of its partners, Ophélie Herranz and Paul Galindo, who head up its Spanish office.

The project has since been shortlisted for apartment interior of the year at Dezeen Awards 2020.

La Nave was originally used as a large, open-plan printshop arranged around a structural concrete grid measuring 34 metres in length and 10 metres in depth.

Nomos' intervention retains this structure but converts its open layout into a continuous loop of living areas, arranged around enclosed private rooms.

"La Nave is the transformation of an industrial space into a place for life, which takes place as a continuous sequence, with very little difference between work and family leisure," said the studio, which also has offices in Geneva and Lisbon.

"La Nave's plan escapes any typological definition. It results from the search for new spatialities required by existing constraints."

Nomos' initial plan for the apartment was to position the enclosed spaces and wet areas on the rear wall – opposite to the only facade with windows.

However, La Nave's existing plumbing is attached to the central concrete columns, meaning the wet areas had to be placed centrally too.

To achieve this while ensuring natural light could enter the depths of the apartment, Nomos positioned the wet areas and enclosed rooms in line with the central columns, but at a 45-degree angle to the outer walls.

They are divided into two parts and set back from windows, making space either side and in between to ensuring light from the windows can pass through.

"The typological strategy started from the search for the optimal location of the service spaces," Herranz told Dezeen.

"The wet cores had to reach the downspouts, attached to the central pillars, but we wanted to move them towards the back of the space, to offer more light to the living spaces. We rotated them 45 degrees and explored the potential of the diagonal."

The layout creates a continuous loop of shared living spaces around the perimeter of the apartment, which are used for work, play and dining.

"We never thought of creating a large, open, loft-like space, but rather a sequence of well-defined spaces, which would give rise to multiple situations," Herranz added.

By setting the private living spaces away from the windows, Nomos also made space for a "winter garden" along the window wall.

This area doubles as a thermal buffer – a space that separates living areas from the outside to reduce dependence on artificial heating and cooling.

The predominant material throughout the renovation is glazed brick, finished in white and cobalt blue, teamed with a pinewood framework and MDF panels.

The materials were chosen by Nomos to complement the existing concrete structure while providing the space with a warmer and more homely atmosphere.

"The qualities of traditional materials provide comfort and reinforce the idea of home, of domesticity, in contrast to the surrounding industrial space," said Herranz.

"The glazed bricks provide a note of brightness and colour typical of a more ornamental language."

The bricks were used to build most of the partitions, with their glazed sides lining bathrooms and kitchen and the unglazed faces exposed in the living rooms.

Their glazed and unglazed sides are also alternated in places to create patterns.

The majority of furniture in the space is bespoke, designed by Nomos from pine wood specifically for La Nave.

This includes a low-lying, circular table and coffee table made from pine, and terrazzo detailing made with old flooring that was removed from the workshop.

Other projects that are shortlisted for apartment interior of the year at Dezeen Awards 2020 a sea-facing residence in Jaffa by Pitsou Kedem and a two-storey dwelling by Coffey Architects that is covered in thousands of wooden blocks.

Photography is by Luis Asin.

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Patricia Bustos Studio channelled "aesthetic madness" to create the striking bright-pink interior of this rentable apartment at the heart of Madrid, Spain.

Locally-based Patricia Bustos Studio applied 12 different shades of pink throughout the Minimal Fantasy apartment, which is meant to offer a bolder take on the typical holiday rental.

"We wanted to do something eye-catching and not go unnoticed, since in Madrid the offer of vacation rentals is enormous and you have to differentiate yourself if you want to have a recurrence in the rentals," the studio told Dezeen.

The 55-square-metre apartment is set inside a 1950s residential building that's a stone's throw away from Madrid's lively Puerta del Sol square.

It formerly played host to just one bedroom and one bathroom, but Patricia Bustos Studio reconfigured the floor plan so that it can comfortably accommodate slightly larger groups of holiday goers.

There are now two bedrooms and an additional bathroom. The kitchen has also been separated from the living area so that, if necessary, it can sleep another two guests.

With structural changes out the way, the studio set about creating the apartment's stand-out interior – which is almost exclusively pink.

"Except for the distribution, which had to be practical, the rest of the project has been an aesthetic madness to take the visitor out of their comfort zone and make them dream," explained the studio.

"Pink is already the colour of a whole generation... the generation of the brave, those who are not afraid of change," it continued.

"Pink vindicates the fall of stereotypes – everything is possible, nothing is planned or established and that's the beauty of it. There are no rules, or rather that everyone has their own."

In the living area, bubblegum-pink paint has been applied across the walls and ceiling. A flecked pink laminate covers the floor and a chunky L-shaped plinth that winds around the corner of the room, topped with plush pink sofa cushions.

Guests can gather for meals around the oval-shaped pink dining table, which is surrounded by dining chairs upholstered in metallic pink fabric with an iridescent finish.

The monochromatic colour scheme is interrupted in the adjacent kitchen, where the cabinets are covered in a mixture of blue, pink and gold geometric shapes.

Worktops are lined with glazed, blush-pink tiles.

These same tiles have been used to clad the side tables and supporting mattress base in one of the apartment's bedrooms.

In the other bedroom, the mattress is pushed up against a scalloped pink headboard. Textural interest is added throughout by baby-pink lamé soft cushions and faux-fur throws.

Arched sliding doors can be drawn back to reveal pink-tile bathrooms, complete with pink-frame vanity mirrors and shiny pink shower curtains.

Other than a few spherical pendant lights, trailing ivy plants and neon art piece, Patricia Bustos Studio hasn't incorporated a lot of decoration in the apartment.

Some elements, like the stepped blocks which display books and other trinkets, are meant to riff off La Muralla Roja – a housing development designed by Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill in 1968, distinguished by its maze of interlocking stairways.

"[Bofill] creates a mysterious and infinite space with the perfect transformation between 2D and 3D, and with several elements that play with the optical illusion," added the studio.

Several other architects and designers haven't shied away from making extensive use of the colour pink – last year, Child Studio covered the interior of a vegan pizza restaurant in London with candy-pink Formica.

Mar Plus Ask also washed the walls of a cave-like guesthouse in Spain with blush-pink stucco.

Photography is by JC de Marcos.

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Sportswear company Adidas has created a baroque-style football kit for Spanish club Real Madrid, which incorporates the patterns found on Azulejos tiles in the city.

The third shirt for Spanish top-tier football club Real Madrid features a grey, faded floral pattern printed over a black base colour, and will be worn during the upcoming 2020/2021 season.

Adidas designed the print as an interpretation of Azulejos – a type of Spanish and Portuguese ceramic tile that was first made in the 13th century, and can be found on many baroque buildings in Madrid.

The designers hope that the print will help tie the shirt's design to the city.

"After some research and immersion into Madrid culture, we discovered the Azulejos were very prominent in the city and also commonly in baroque style," said Marco Omiccioli, graphic and apparel designer at Adidas.

"We and the club felt this was a strong connection to the city and to the daily life in Madrid – something everyone can relate to whilst still being a thing of beauty and art," he told Dezeen.

Adidas took the traditional tile pattern as the basis for the design, before redrawing it and presenting it in a grey and black colour combination in contrast to the typically vibrant ceramics.

"We then took inspiration from this and merged it with Real Madrid DNA to bring a unique story to the third kit," said Omiccioli.

"The artwork was also created using a certain amount of distress to the look so that it more accurately reflects the look of the Azulejos and their antiquity, but fused with a modern and progressive colour palette that gives it a contemporary and lifestyle feel."

The Azulejos-informed pattern will also be used on the kit's shorts. Details, which include the club logo, Adidas logo, sponsor name and stripes running down the sides of the shirt, are coloured in a bright pink hue.

Adidas's baroque-style kit for Real Madrid is just one example of its designers taking cues from various art movements for this season's kits. The sportswear company also created a shirt for London club Arsenal that was informed by the club's art deco history.

"The creative direction of the season was looking at football through the lens of art, and Madrid is a city full of artistic history, so we wanted to find a different angle to that topic," explained Omiccioli.

Adidas also created a dazzle camouflage shirt for Manchester United this season, as well as a kit for FC Bayern Munich that pays homage to its Herzog & de Meuron stadium.

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Spanish architecture firm Zooco Estudio has covered the walls of this Madrid residence with bookshelves that span two levels.

House 6 is a detached single-family home located in northern Madrid. Local studio Zooco Estudio overhauled the residence contrasting white interiors with pale wood cabinetry and herringbone patterned flooring.

The centrepiece of the design is a white shelving unit that extends two floors and wraps around the walls of the house's living room and dining area.

On the lower level, the volume comprises dozens of rectangular cases for storing books, movies and electronics, including a mounted television. A series of narrow cubbies also occupy the space between a glass dining table and entryway creating storage for hanging apparel.

"As a unifying element, a shelf rises colonising both living and lobby spaces," the studio said. "This way we integrate aesthetic and functionality in one single element."

The shelves continue on the upper level with a rectangular volume along a hallway. Pendant light fixtures hang from the ceiling to illuminate the floor below.

In the kitchen, pale oak fronts the cabinetry and details the base of a white kitchen island. White tiles form the splashback behind the sink and cover the rectangular range hood hanging above the island.

A spiral staircase with black metal steps is carved into the wall to create a sculptural focal point within the space.

Upstairs the bedroom and bathrooms are concealed by a wall of slender wooden slats lacquered white. The narrow strips separate the master bedroom from the bathroom. A section of the millwork is intentionally left open to expose the shower.

"A continuous view was required so you can see through the slats to the shower," the studio added. "However, the private areas of the bathroom are completely hidden."

In the bathroom the studio has covered the walls and floors with white tiles and blue grouting. A geometric counter clad with blue tiles snakes across the ground and up the wall to form a storage closet in the space.

Zooco Estudio is an architecture firm with offices in Madrid and Santander founded by Miguel Crespo Picot, Javier Guzmán Benito and Sixto Martín Martínez. The studio has also completed an art centre in Verín that comprises several granite buildings and a child play area built out of wood for a co-working office in Santa Monica, California.

Other renovation projects in Madrid include a house with a permeable metal sculpture designed by Beta Ø Architects and an apartment by Lucas y Hernández Gil with sliding wall partitions.

Photography is by Imagen Subliminal.

Project credits:

Project manager: Miguel Crespo Picot, Javier Guzmán Benito, Sixto Martín Martínez
Construction: Nimbo Proyectos S L
Lighting: Zooco Estudio
Furniture design: Zooco Estudio

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A pale geometric relief wall offsets brass and green-marble decor details inside Forte Forte's Madrid boutique, designed by creative duo Giada Forte and Robert Vattilana.

The store occupies a corner plot in Salamanca – a glamorous district of the city known for its boulevards lined with luxury fashion boutiques and upscale restaurants.

It was designed by the brand's co-founder, Giada Forte and her partner, art director Robert Vattilana.

The pair devised opulent interiors for Forte Forte's London, Milan, Tokyo and Paris stores, but wanted the new Madrid branch to have a more restrained aesthetic that still offered moments of "poetry and feminine delicacy".

"[The store] is charged with a sensual energy polarized on the offset of masculine and feminine, curves and angles, geometry and sentiment," Forte and Vattilana explained.

"There's a recognizable grammar of surfaces, treatments, colors uniting the different spaces that's born from our creative dialogue, but the narration takes on a different metric and tone."

An off-white relief wall that features a haphazard array of raised geometric shapes runs down one side of Forte Forte's ground level.

A structural column in the store has been given a similarly geometric form. It extends up through a circular opening in the ceiling that has been backlit to look as if natural light is beaming through from the outdoors.

At the centre of the store is a low-lying semicircular bench perched on a mottled pink rug. The flooring that runs underneath has been inlaid with mismatch cuts of grooved and plain stone, as well as tiny triangles made from emerald-green Iranian marble.

The same veiny marble has been used to make the store's door handle and its rounded service counter.

Directly above the counter, thin brass stems have been loosely arranged in a grid-like formation to form a hanging sculpture. It supports a handful of warped glass orbs.

Heavy gold velvet curtains help screen-off the cylindrical changing booth that dominates the rear corner of the store.

Brass doors punctuated by small portholes can be pulled back to grant access to the inside of the booth, where teal-blue carpet has been fitted to match the blue underside of the curtains.

Garments are hung from spindly brass rails, while accessories and lifestyle items are presented on a set of brass shelves held up by a pole that's been made to resemble an oversized bolt.

A curving blush-pink staircase leads up to the store's second floor. Forte and Vattilana have used the expansive landing that sits between the staircase's two flights of steps as an additional display area.

It's dressed with a huge leafy plant, another brass clothes rail and an organically-shaped mirror.

Forte Forte first opened its own physical store in 2018 – until then, the brand's clothing could only be purchased online or through high-end fashion retailers.

The inaugural store in Milan has been decorated with a curious array of found objects including a nude sketch, a lump of coral and a bust of the goddess Venus that came from an old French foundry.

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Reflected greenery shrouds the mirrored extension that architecture practice Delavegacanolasso added to house in Madrid, which occupies a disused art studio.

La Madriguera, which translates to The Burrow, has been designed by Delavegacanolasso to be a cosy home for a young couple.

"Today's architecture has forgotten the importance of privacy and has succumbed to exhibitionism," explained the practice.

"Great windows in thin walls looking nowhere, showing everything, changing mystery for the evident," it continued.

"La Madriguera gets the house back to its essence, claiming the importance of the introverted against the extroverted."

The 50-square-metre house was a converted from an art studio that once belonged to a grandfather of the client.

Over time it had become largely inhospitable – it had no thermal insulation and the verdant garden had become "more like a dump", littered with knick-knacks that couldn't be stored inside the studio.

Delavegacanolasso had to completely revive the structure in order for it to be liveable.

An extension wrapped in mirrored sheets of methacrylate – a type of thermoplastic – has been erected to accommodate a bedroom and bathroom.

The panels reflect surrounding leafy foliage, camouflaging the extension against the garden – it's only distinguishable by a large porthole that punctures its front elevation.

Inside, La Madriguera's bedroom has been finished with simple white surfaces in-built with storage.

To foster a sense of warmth, light-hued pine wood has been used to line a singular wall, and to craft the bed frame, overhead shelving and door.

The circular window looks out over the new garden pond, which the practice hopes will eventually entice frogs and other wildlife. On the edge perches a nude stone sculpture that once belonged to the client's great grandmother.

Several potted plants have also been dotted amongst five mature holm oak trees which have stood on site for a number of years.

Another perspective of the garden is offered in the bathroom, where another porthole has been created in the shower cubicle.

The restored art studio accommodates La Madriguera's all-white kitchen suite and a living-cum-dining area.

Furnishings and fixtures have been custom made to run around the periphery of the room to free-up floor space.

A wooden work desk sits directly beneath the front window, while an L-shaped sofa bench bends in line with the rear wall.

This conceals a series of storage cabinets and has been perforated with peg holes so that inhabitants can easily mount and display works of art.

The sofa is dressed with an array of bold cushions printed with stripes of red and orange. Matching chairs surround the glass dining table, and a glossy, tangerine-coloured pendant lamp has been suspended from the ceiling.

Insulating cork panels have finally been fitted in the roof, along with a couple of frosted sheets of glass to let in extra natural light.

Delavegacanolasso is led by architects Pilar Cano-Lasso and Ignacio de la Vega, and is based in Madrid's La Moraleja neighbourhood.

It's not the only practice to incorporate reflective surfaces in a residential project. Altus Architecture + Design used panels of polished stainless steel to create a shiny shed for a home in Minnesota.

Architect Tatiana Bilbao also wrapped a holiday home in Monterrey in mirrored glass to help camouflage it against its forested surroundings.

Photography is by Imagen Subliminal unless stated otherwise.

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More than food and drink is offered inside this healthy cafe in Madrid, where architecture practice Andrés Jaque/Office for Political Innovation has included a host of quirky facilities.

Run Run Run takes over a corner plot in Madrid's Rios Rosas neighbourhood.

The two-floor cafe, which also hosts a running club for locals, includes showers and lockers, as well as a vegetable garden that grows ingredients required for the dishes on the menu.

Locally based Andrés Jaque/Office for Political Innovation hopes this clashing mix of facilities will encourage people to "use the city differently".

"Its an infrastructure that turns the city into a playground and a place for people to transform their bodies," said the practice.

"It supports emancipation from domestic spaces and provides opportunities for interhuman gathering through activities that usually promote individuality."

A social security office previously occupied the site of Run Run Run, but its fit-out was completely stripped back to leave behind just a handful of concrete columns.

The practice worked around these columns to erect an internal greenhouse-like structure, composed of mint-green steel beams and sheets of plastic.

Spherical glass orbs planted with soil and vegetables have been suspended in the narrow void between the greenhouse and the facade of the building, allowing passerby on the street to get an up-close glimpse of the produce being grown.

There's also a red neon sign denoting the cafe's name.

The practice has applied a vibrant mismatch of colours and materials inside on the ground floor, where the main cafe area lies.

Organic cellulose was used to create a grainy surface texture across the ceiling, which has been painted pink. Wood and pale, veiny marble have then been spliced together to form a patchwork floor.

Bright orange dining tables have been dotted throughout. Some of them back onto bubblegum-pink seating booths with scalloped edges, while others are surrounded by bespoke chairs that the practice designed itself.

One model has a vermillion-red metal frame, with a criss-cross base and meshed circular backrest.

The other style of chair has a more blocky form and is composed of sea-green bricks made from wax and pine tree resin.

"[The chairs] look like quite stable architectural elements, as a way to underscore the mutability and lightness of the rest of the elements in Run Run Run's architecture," the practice's eponymous founder, Andrés Jaque, told Dezeen.

The practice's bold palette continues down on the lower-ground floor. Here there's a casual meeting area anchored by a long brass and marble table, illuminated by an exposed-bulb lamp that dangles above.

Behind are the showers, only separated by a pane of glass. If users dare to get bare, they can leave their belongings in the round silver-metal lockers that extend from the wall.

Andrés Jaque/Office for Political Innovation was established in 2003. Founding architect Andrés Jaque has most recently collaborated with Ivan Munuera to create a short film on the impact of coronavirus, which premiered during Dezeen's Virtual Design Festival.

The film, titled The Transscalar Architecture of COVID-19, reveals how the pandemic has affected everything from the economy and the built environment, to pollution levels and wildlife habitats.

Photography is by José Hevia unless stated otherwise. Video by Imagen Subliminal.

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Architecture photographer Marc Goodwin has shared photos of architecture studios in Madrid taken just before the country went into lockdown along with messages from the studios now.

Goodwin, founder of photography studio Archmospheres, has been travelling around the world documenting architecture studios, from Istanbul to Shanghai, Mexico City to Paris.

His latest collection focused on Madrid, where offices including OOIIO Architecture, Andrés Jaque and Langarita Navarro Arwuitectos are based. In total, Goodwin shot 17 studios in the Spanish capital.

However, as he finalised the series, coronavirus hit Europe and Spain went into lockdown on 14 March. The country has implemented some of Europe's toughest containment measures, and restrictions are due to remain in place through May and June.

"Madrid is apparently a ghost town at the moment, which is hard to imagine," said Goodwin, meaning his photographs of architects working together in their offices are of a world that currently does not exist.

Goodwin got back in touch with the studios whose offices he'd already photographed and asked them to share how they've adapted to the new normal of working from home.

"I think it might also help a lot of readers to feel better," Goodwin told Dezeen. "This is very hard on all of us."

Scroll down to see 17 Madrid studios before coronavirus, along with updates from some of them:

Moneo Brock

In this space since: 2013
Number of employees: 11
Building's former use: mix of offices housing

The Covid-19 crisis has affected our work radically," said studio co-founder Jeffrey Brock.

"Working from home is not as exciting as having your team together and sharing their opinions. We do connect with them by Zoom but it doesn't feel as engaging," added co-founder Belén Moneo.

They hope that the pandemic will bring a chance for a more sustainable and bike-friendly city.

"Here in Madrid unfortunately we do not have a lot of specific and segregated bicycle lanes," said Moneo. "The city has had a real transformation." Along with cleaner air from no cars, they can observe just how much public space there is that could be re-assigned to prioritise pedestrians.

Watch Moneo Brock's message below:

Langarita Navarro Arwuitectos

In this space since: 2007
Number of employees: seven
Building's former use: art and architecture studios

Morph Estudio

In this space since: 2017
Number of employees: 120
Building's former use: office building

"The situation in Madrid is very, very, very serious," said Morph Estudio director César Frías Enciso. "After the construction market had begun to recover from the last financial crash, the coronavirus has brought it to a halt."

"There are not many positive conclusions from this situation," he added. "We are learning to work separated. Of course, we are more prepared for next time. The next medical crisis, I think we are going to act quicker."

Watch César Frías Enciso's message below:

Husos Architects

In this space since: 2005
Number of employees: five
Building's former use: housing and shops

Carlos Arroyo Architects

In this space since: 2018
Number of employees: six
Building's former use: tailor's atelier

Estudio Herreros 

In this space since: 5.5 years
Number of employees: 20
Building's former use: designed in 1958 as a residential block by the architect Secundino Zuazo

"The most important thing is to maintain the connection of the team," said studio co-founder Juan Herreros. "To feel that they have this sense of belonging to a group with a common project."

Estudio Herroros has also started a joint endeavour called Re-Visit on their Instagram, to share sketches of former projects with colleagues and friends.

"For us, this change has been a surprising and positive way to learn about new ways to collaboratively work in the team," added co-founder Jens Richter.

Watch Herreros and Richter's message below:

L35 Arquitectos

In this space since: 1993
Number of employees: 60
Building's former use: modelling agency, office of Segundamano, residences

Pedro Pitarch

In this space since: December 2019
Number of employees: three
Building's former use: residential

OOIIO Architecture

In this space since: 2016
Number of employees: 10
Building's former use: abandoned space

"We are constantly worried and trying to understand what's happening," said OOIIO Architecture founder Joaquín Millán Villamuelas. "The entire studio is empty, the entire studio is working at home."

"Everyone is trying to do their best to be productive and get the work done – with their pyjamas on their sofa," he added.

"We are creative people, and this is another challenge. Let's face this new crisis."

Watch Villamuelas' message below:

Estudio Gonzalo del Val, Studio Animal and Toni Gelabert

In this space since: 2015, 2018 and 2020
Number of employees: two each
Building's former use: residential

TallerDE2 Architects

In this space since: 2014
Number of employees: five
Building's former use: housing

Estudio Lamela

In this space since: 2008
Number of employees: 61 in this space, 86 in total
Building's former use: built by the studio in 2008

"We have taken our computers home, which makes working from home as if we were in the office – only avoiding rush hour," said Estudio Lamela architect María Chocarro.

"We also are in constant contact with our colleagues through an internal chat," she added. "We also video chat a lot, which is quite funny because you get to see the private environments and houses of your colleagues and bosses, making us all more human in a way."

Watch María Chocarro's message below:

José María Sánchez García

In this space since: 2009
Number of employees: 10
Building's former use: office

Andrés Jaque

In this space since: 2010
Number of employees: 12
Building's former use: archive of Ocaso insurance company

Estudio Entresitio

In this space since: 2002
Number of employees: 10
Building's former use: residential

"This coronavirus lockdown is going to be an opportunity to change how a studio of architecture works," said Estudio Entresitio co-founder César Jiménez de Tejada Benavides.

"The change was already happening," added co-founder María Hurtado de Mendoza Wahrolén. "It's a weird way, calling the virus an opportunity, but now we have to go for it," she added.

"Technology, society, and we as an office were ready to take this challenge."

Watch Estudio Entresitio's message below:

Elii 

In this space since: 2015
Number of employees: seven
Building's former use: office and residential building

b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos
In this space since: 2008
Number of employees: 50
Building's former use: diabetes clinic

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Architect Leticia Saá has woven historical features such as exposed brickwork and wooden pillars into the minimal interior of this open-plan apartment in Madrid.

Located in Madrid's Lavapiés neighbourhood, the two-bedroom apartment is spread across the top floor of a three-storey residential building that dates back to 1900.

The apartment had been unoccupied for 35 years prior to its renovation, which has been carried out by local architect Leticia Saá.

Its owners – a young couple – had previously lived in a tiny and cluttered flat, so were keen for their new home to feel large and spacious.

As a result, Saá has given the 130-square-metre apartment a largely open-plan layout where the bathrooms are the only completely private areas.

Social spaces such as the living room, kitchen and home office are located on one half of the plan, while the bedrooms and bathrooms are on the other.

The two sides are linked by a hallway which wraps around the building's stairwell and central courtyard.

To soften the appearance of the interior, which has been given a minimalist fit-out, Saá sought to incorporate some of the building's original quirks.

Time-worn brick walls, wooden beams and pillars have been preserved, as well as a brick fireplace. Surrounding surfaces have been freshened up with a simple coat of white paint.

"
To create a space which exudes calm and serenity inside the hustle of the city, we wanted to use a minimalist but warm decorative and furnishing style," explained Saá.

"
The architecture of the 1900s had a very strong impact in the historic city centre, so we wanted to recover the building techniques of that period and reveal them in some parts of the house."

To enhance the feeling of the apartment being one large, continuous space, Saá wanted concrete flooring to appear throughout the interior. This is in exception of the living room, where wide oak floorboards have been installed instead.

The change of flooring here is meant to signal a change in the mood of the space.

"I wanted to create a cosy and natural environment and make the living room different from the rest of the apartment," Saá told Dezeen.

The entrance hallway has been conceived as transitional space between the inside and outside. An array of houseplants sit in one corner, and a small interior window has been punctuated in a wall to create the sensation of a patio or a street.

The washbasin of the bathroom has been placed outside of its door, intended to act as a visual barrier between the guest quarters and the rest of the home.

"It was also placed here because of the lovely natural light which comes across the window," Saá said.

In the kitchen, which is located between the hall and the living room, Saá has continued the pared-back aesthetic. The space features handle-less plywood cupboards, a stainless-steel backsplash and a breakfast island with a white-steel frame.

A cardboard lamp by Dutch design studio Waarmakers hangs directly above.

"We consider [the kitchen] as an integrated element in the house," added Saá, "That's why the island has this light appearance, and only an induction cooker appears atop the counter."

A mezzanine level that's used as an extra guest room or reading corner sits above the kitchen and is accessed via a step ladder.

A home office and utility space are also located opposite the kitchen.

Like Saá, many architects opt to keep historic elements – White Arrow preserved ornate door frames and coving in its renovation of an apartment in Berlin, while TAAB6 conserved barrel-vaulted brick ceilings in its overhaul of a Barcelona townhouse.

Photography is by Iñaki Domingo of IDC Studio.

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Design studio Casa Josephine arranged yellow, red and deep-blue tiles to create the "emphatically geometrical" interior of this advertising office in Madrid.

The office is situated in Madrid's lively Malasana neighbourhood and takes over a former motorcycle-repair workshop.

Locally based Casa Josephine was brought on board to transform the two-floor building into a workspace for an advertising agency.

Its two owners wanted there to be a mix of private and communal areas that encourages communication amongst staff and the easy exchange of ideas.

"One last condition had to be met: the spatial design should be flexible enough to allow for a potential redefinition of the use of the different sections of the agency," said the studio.

The ground floor is now a single, long room that runs down to a rear meeting-area, fronted by floor-to-ceiling beige doors with arched windows.

At its centre is a glossy jet-black table surrounded by matching fold-out chairs.

Five spherical pendant-lamps have then been suspended at different lengths from the ceiling to form a V-shape.

Sunshine-yellow and white cement tiles have been arranged on the back wall to form concentric squares.

Red, burnt-orange and cobalt-blue tiles have then been inlaid across the floor to create a number of Tetris-like motifs.

"Floors, walls and textiles are emphatically geometrical, whereas the pieces of furniture were designed with a more subdued personality for contrast," explained the studio.

The rest of the ground floor accommodates a communal timber desk that has been built around a series of pre-existing iron columns, which the studio freshened up with a coat of white paint.

Should staff want additional privacy, this area can be closed off by a full-height yellow curtain. Various seating poufs and cushioned benches have also been dotted throughout so that employees can form impromptu casual work areas.

A gently sloping counter has also been erected along a peripheral wall. Black-painted wooden stools are slotted underneath, giving staff a place to perch and work with laptops.

Adjacently lies an off-white block of lockers with vaulted doors, mimicking the shape of those in the meeting room.

At this level there is also a small kitchen complete with terracotta-coloured cabinetry.

More workspace lies down in the basement, accessed via a staircase that's been covered entirely in yellow tiles. White tiles have also been used here to form a sequence of window-like rectangular shapes on the wall.

Casa Josephine was founded in 2012 and is headed up by Iñigo Aragón and Pablo López Navarro.

It isn't the only studio to embrace colour for office interiors. BoardGrove Architects erected peachy partitions to delineate different zones in a Melbourne office, while MDDM Studio used primary-coloured furnishings to brighten the pale interior of a film production HQ in Beijing.

Photography is by Iñigo Aragon unless stated otherwise.

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An indoor courtyard with orange grass and shiny, silver curtains are some of the fun features that Lucas y Hernández-Gil has added to the basement of this Madrid apartment.

Located at the heart of Madrid in the Malasana neighbourhood, Casa A12 has been overhauled by Lucas y Hernández-Gil to boast "two very different atmospheres".

While the ground floor of the duplex apartment is meant to be conventionally domestic, the lower level has been turned into a "world of work and leisure" where its owners – a young couple with a pet dog – can escape.

"Different atmospheres have been linked in a play on perceptive contrasts where each room is a space simultaneously differentiated and flexible, where geometry, colour and light configure an artificial interior landscape," explained the practice.

The brief also required more natural light to be brought into the apartment, which was being restricted because of the building's deep floor-plan.

A third of the ground floor has thus been dedicated to an open-plan vestibule that's sparsely furnished, allowing an abundance of light to flow from two large windows that overlook the street.

The only interruption to the space is a floor-to-ceiling cylindrical pod with a ridged blue surface, inside of which lies a small bathroom decked out in coral-orange tiles.

Behind this room lies the kitchen that's been kept bright with white cabinetry and light-timber stool seats that have been arranged around a breakfast island. Flashes of colour are provided by a perforated yellow dining-table and cobalt-blue dining chairs.

Two colours that pop up several times throughout the home – coral-orange and cobalt blue – have also been applied to the walls, balustrade and steps of the stairwell that leads down to the apartment's lower level.

The shades are directly inspired by Number 14: a painting by 20th-century abstract expressionist artist Mark Rothko, which features contrasting blocks of orange and blue pigment set against a black background.

Like on the ground floor, a majority of surfaces in the basement have been painted white to make the apartment seem bright and airy.

A handful of partitions have also been clad with reflective sheets of corrugated metal, while dramatic full-height curtains crafted from shiny silver fabric provide privacy to the bedroom suite.

The practice has attempted to introduce an element of the outdoors with an internal courtyard, complete with orange artificial grass and tall leafy trees.

A metal grill installed in the ceiling here means that the space also benefits from natural light filtering through from the street-level vestibule above.

"It constitutes an oasis, a tropical garden of surreal character that structures the inferior floor," added the practice.

Circular openings have been punctuated in the ceiling and then backlit to form faux skylights, mirrored by the large blue dots painted on some of the walls.

Connecting corridors are also fitted with LED strip lights that can glow different colours.

Lucas y Hernández-Gil has been established since 2007 and is headed up by architects Cristina Domínguez Lucas and Fernando Hernández-Gil.

Casa A12 is one of several projects that the practice has completed in its home city of Madrid – others include Juana Limón, a bakery with pastel-hued fixtures, and Casa P82, an open-plan flat where rooms are separated by sliding partitions.

Photography is by José Hevia.

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Spanish studio Beta Ø Architects has inserted a void and a permeable metal sculpture at the centre of this Madrid family home to let air and natural light flow through its interiors.

Located in the city's affluent El Viso neighbourhood, X House has been overhauled by locally based studio Beta Ø Architects to incorporate elements of the outdoors on every floor.

"It was wonderful because during the project we had intuitions of what could be contemplated through each window or terrace – but we were surprised with the interior-exterior dialogue that we were finding," studio founder, Borja Peña, told Dezeen.

"We only had to allow the light and the atmosphere to penetrate inside the house, in order to blur the boundaries."

The majority of the home's internal partition walls have been knocked through to make room for a huge black metal sculpture that extends up through a central void.

It is composed of staggered rectangular frames arranged in a stair-like formation.

The void is topped by two skylights that allow cooling air to travel through the house during the warm summer months and sunlight to reach spherical hanging planters that have been dotted throughout.

"It colonises the central space in the home like a tree and resolves the house's vertical communication, acting as a true backbone to the setting," explained the studio.

The ground floor features clean white walls and concrete floors – an industrial material purposefully selected by the studio for its ability to be used in both indoor and outdoor spaces.

It's been sparsely dressed with a dining table, a couple of armchairs and a contemporary black wood-burner to avoid creating "drab circulation areas".

A series of much warmer living spaces have been created on the first floor, which is meant to be the hub of the home. Floor-to-ceiling timber cabinetry appears in the kitchen and study, while a timber tub has been created for the bathroom.

Expansive wood-trimmed windows that look through to a tree-lined street have been punctuated in the outer structural walls, flooding the interiors with natural light.

Beta Ø Architects is based in Madrid and is lead by Borja Peña, Ernesto Sierra and Xabier Ortega.

The studio's X House has been longlisted for Dezeen Awards Urban House category and will compete against projects like Form Zero's Planter Box House, which has a greenery-lined facade, and Daniel Zamarbide's Dodge House, which features glass-walled living spaces.

See what other projects made the list here.

Photography is by Imagen Subliminal and David Zarzoso.

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Openable concrete panels and sun-shading blinds add dynamism to the otherwise austere facades of the Elcano housing block by Madrid-based practice FRPO.

The block, which contains 13 apartments, has been built close to the centre of Madrid between two distinct areas. To the north, the main facade faces a busy road and a series of industrial buildings, and to the south, balconies now overlook a quiet garden space and pool.

"Regulations restricted the building to a 12 metres depth, which allowed for an area occupied by a garden and pool, something not very common in the neighbourhood that gave a unique quality to these developments," explained FRPO.

The district, previously occupied primarily by industrial buildings and workshops, is rapidly being transformed into housing, and the studio sought to reference this history with their design for the new housing block.

The north facade was built using prefabricated glass reinforced concrete panels, which can be rotated to reveal the aligned windows behind, allowing light into the interiors while simultaneously providing sun-shading.

The quieter southern facade was assembled from prefabricated metal frame elements, creating a grid of small balconies that can be closed-off from direct sunlight using the external roller-blind sunshades.

At the block's lower levels, deep, yellow-lined cuts have been made through the form that draw light into the communal access areas and two levels of underground parking.

"The volume is drilled with two double and triple height gaps adjusting the maximum built surface: a car and pedestrian passage resembling the old industrial constructions in the area, and a void in the facade that allows the natural ventilation of the garage," said the architecture studio.

Where these areas have been hollowed out of the building's sections, apartments have been pushed back to face the internal courtyard rather than the street.

Inside, polished concrete floors, drywall partitions and floor-to-ceiling thresholds between rooms have created bright, open apartments.

"The space is fluid, connecting corridors and kitchens with living areas through large sliding doors,"  the studio continued.

FRPO was founded in 2008 by Fernando Rodriguez and Pablo Oriel. Previous projects include a concrete pool pavilion in a forest on the outskirts of Madrid, and MO House, a home in a forest split into different forms clustered around the trees.

Photography is by Imagen Subliminal.

Project credits:

Architecture: FRPO Rodriguez & Oriol
Project leaders: Pablo Oriol and Fernando Rodríguez
Collaborators: Fran Díaz, Ricardo González, Esther Ibáñez, Matilde Lorenzo, Almudena Navas and Julia Burón
Consultants: Antonio Lorenzo, David Marcos, Pablo Urbano, Pablo Matilla and Grupo AXIOM

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A major plan to reduce air pollution in Madrid may be repealed, because incoming politicians want to bring traffic back into the city.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso of Spain's right-wing Partido Popular (PP), who is expected to become president of the Madrid region, said that traffic jams are part of what make the Spanish capital special.

"It is a sign identity of our city, that the street is always alive," she told El País.

José Luis Martínez-Almeida, the PP candidate who is expected to become mayor of Madrid, has said that lifting the rules on traffic and air pollution in the Madrid Central area will be his first priority when elected.

"Our position was clear, and it was one of the pillars of our campaign," he was reported saying in El País.

Lifting traffic ban would be first for Europe

If PP takes power and remove Madrid's low emissions zone (LEZ), it will be the first example of a major European air quality directive being abandoned.

The LEZ was enacted in November 2018 by the outgoing left-wing mayor of Madrid, Manuela Carmena, after a European commission threatened Spain with legal action and a hefty fine unless it stopped infringing its rules on air quality.

All-polluting vehicles are banned from a 472-hectare zone covering the centre of Madrid. Petrol vehicles registered before 2000 and diesel vehicles registered prior to 2008 are not allowed in the area, in an effort to cut nitrogen dioxide levels by 23 per cent by 2020.

Activist group Ecologists in Action conducted air-quality tests in the Madrid Central zone in April 2019, which showed that pollution levels around the busy Plaza del Carmen had almost halved in just a year, dropping by 48 per cent since 2018.

But Martínez-Almeida said he believes there are more effective ways to tackle climate change and air pollution in Madrid, such as subsidising new low-emission cars.

He said that, if he becomes mayor, he will focus on "the problems that matter the most to Madrileños", such as street cleanliness and conservation.

30,000 people die from air pollution in Spain every year

Prior to the LEZ, Madrid was registering dangerously high levels of nitrogen dioxide in the heavily populated centre.

Nitrogen dioxide is produced by burning fossil fuels. In urban areas, the main cause of its polluting effects come from cars building up in traffic jams. Exposure to it causes health problems, including increased respiratory issues and decreased life expectancy.

In 2012, the European Environment Agency recorded 30,000 premature deaths in Spain linked to exposure to pollutants including nitrogen dioxide.

Main image from Pixabay.

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Aberrant Architecture has created a huge playground in a former Madrid slaughterhouse, based on the work of Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck.

Landscape for Play is a temporary installation in Intermediae, a gallery in one of the old warehouses that make up the Matadero Madrid cultural centre.

The design comprises a large colourful patterned floor dotted with objects and openings that invite children to run, jump, hide and climb.

These include a big red hexagonal prism that you can climb into with a ladder, circles set into the ground, stepping stones and a blue doorway.

London-based Aberrant Architecture developed the design after researching the many playgrounds that Van Eyck created in Amsterdam after the second world war. Studio founders David Chambers and Kevin Haley then developed a strategy based on patterns and rules they spotted in the designs.

"We were particularly interested in how Van Eyck utilised an architectural vocabulary for his playground designs," explained Chambers.

"This vocabulary utilised a series of varying geometrical shapes that aimed to craft a terrain that stimulated the imagination and led to human interaction and play," he told Dezeen.

"We broke down Van Eyck's architectural vocabulary into seven concepts which we proceeded to use to generate our own design: shapes, surface relationship, boundary, composition, territory, graphic language and threshold."

Colourful graphics decorate the forms, offering a striking contrast with the industrial architecture of the old slaughterhouse building. The colour palette, with its bold shades of red, yellow, green, blue and black, references postwar graphic design.

"We looked at colour palettes that were being used at the time that Van Eyck was designing and creating his playground," said Chambers.

According to Chambers, this method of using historic colour palettes was one they were keen to continue after completing their Rosemary Works school project in London's Hackney.

"We shortlisted over 100 colours before creating colour samples which we mixed and matched before settling on the final combinations," he said.

The pattern was also adopted from Van Eyck, based on a pattern applied to a wall overlooking one of his playgrounds.

"We played and adapted this pattern, changing both its scale and the design of the pattern itself so that the colours and pattern started to define actual spaces that people could inhabit and respond to. We then applied the pattern horizontally as a landscape that people could occupy," said Chambers.

The installation opened in April and will remain in place until late September. It will be used for hosting a variety of programmed activities, not just as a play space. Aberrant Architecture is keen to encourage adults to play as well as children.

"This playground is not just for kids," added Haley. "Adults can also inhabit the spaces, create games and interact with their children."

Photography is by Lukasz Michalak.

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Spanish studio Husos Arquitectos has created a 46-square-metre plywood-lined apartment in Madrid for a young doctor and his pet bulldog.

The apartment is located within a 1960s housing-block in Madrid's Acacias neighbourhood, which is described by the architects as a modern take on the traditional Spanish corrala – blocks of flats linked by external corridors that look out over a shared interior courtyard.

The apartment's owner is a young doctor who works in the local hospital and shares the apartment with his pet bulldog Albóndiga, which means meatball in Spanish.

Both the doctor and his dog had a number of requirements that the architects noted after observing their daily activities.

Both are very sensitive to the heat, so needed a well-ventilated apartment that could stay cool during Madrid's hot summer months.

In addition, the living room needed to be large enough to enable a variety of activities such as stretching out and watching TV, writing up medical reports and entertaining friends.

The home also needed to be spacious enough for the doctor to invite friends to stay over without having to open out a sofa bed, which would take up a lot of space in the living room.

"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," explained the Madrid-based architects.

To address the issues, the interior space was 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.

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," said the firm.

In addition, the architects considered the doctor's sleep pattern. Working in the hospital emergency room means that he is often required to work night shifts, so it's important to take naps during the day.

"We realised that a siesta space should be an important feature of the design," said the firm. "It would preferably be an alternative to his usual bed, which would be reserved as a place to sleep at night."

Distributed within a 1.5-metre-wide strip along the south side of the apartment is the bedroom, a dressing room, a storeroom, and a multi-use capsule that works as a space to receive guests who might stay overnight. The capsule also doubles as an alternative place to take naps.

"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," said the architects.

"By closing the sliding door, the space inside becomes private, and from the outside the door works as a great video projection screen."

On the floor, a series of cotton hemispheres serve as islands for the bulldog to rest on. They are fixed to the floor with suction cups, which enables the owner to choose and change their placement.

The architects were keen for the apartment to contrast with the "antiseptic, supposedly neutral and white ambience" of the hospital ward where the doctor works, and so used warm colours and natural materials such as pine and birch plywood to create a cosy atmosphere.

Husos Arquitectos installed a vertical vegetable garden on the balcony that overlooks the apartment block's central courtyard.

Visible from the corrala, the garden is protected on the inside by a set of two curtains, one made of transparent plastic that creates a greenhouse effect in winter, and another made of a porous textile that provides shade in summer.

"The tomatoes, herbs, and other species planted in the new domestic vegetable garden will provide an excess of produce that he will be unable to eat on his own, giving him the option of sharing it with others," said Husos Arquitectos.

"In this way, the vegetable garden supplies not only food, but also the potential for extending the relational capacities of the dwelling."

The design also includes a watering system that makes use of the grey water from the shower. Water is temporarily stored and then filtered to irrigate and maintain the plants which, as well as providing food, work as part of the thermal control solution to keep the interior cool.

The architects said that this method is so successful that it was not necessary to install any mechanical cooling system such as air conditioning, even for the hottest months of the year.

"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 micro-realities and forms of home in a small living space," concluded the studio.

This apartment in Madrid by Lucas y Hernández Gil uses sliding partitions to divide up a space that had also been badly compartmentalised, with the same ambition of creating both a private space and one suitable for entertaining.

Photography is by José Hevia.

Project credits:

Architecture: Husos – Camilo García and Diego Barajas
Collaborators: Francesca Beltrame, Agustina Zaratiegui, Álvaro Heredia and Wiktoria Stepien (students in training), Giulia Poma and Aníbal Arenas
Construction: Husos, Verticales Formé, Atipica
Measurements and budgeting: José Ramón Pérez
Horticulture and irrigation system consultants: Nuria Preciado and Antonio Gámiz (agronomists), César Nunes, César Nunes, Julián Pérez, Chema Blanco
Structural consulting: Mecanismo

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London-based Steyn Studio built Sierra House in Madrid from concrete and travertine with a striking sawtooth roof that looks like a mountain ridge.

With a narrow, 6.8-metre-wide site and strict planning restrictions, Sierra House is Steyn Studio's reinterpretation of the typical townhouse typology of the surrounding neighbourhood.

Due to local height restrictions the roof could not peak in the middle, so it was built as two forms with a gap in the middle, which is lined with solar panels.

Sierra means both "saw" and "mountain" in Spanish, making it an appropriate name for a house with a jagged roofline.

The house is divided into two main sections, a tall and thin rough concrete volume and a larger travertine volume.

Metal mesh covers the gap between the two, and both volumes have then been pushed and pulled to create entrances and openings.

"These two contrasting yet complementary materials reference the villas locality at the edge of Madrid where the urban city – a concrete jungle – meets nature [in the form of] mountains and stone," said Steyn Studio.

"As a townhouse it claims its own space between exposed boarded concrete feature walls, cradling a monolithic travertine block."

Considering the narrow site, the plan has been arranged to create elongated, high spaces that feel as large as possible.

The distinct external forms of the concrete and travertine halves of the villa merge internally at the ground floor, forming in a large living, dining and kitchen space. This room faces the long garden behind with windows and sliding glazed doors.

"Zones are defined with level changes, height changes and screens. The upper bedroom volumes are conceived as a house within a house, which contributed to its definition overall," said Steyn Studio.

Bedrooms are arranged on the first floor, with bathrooms positioned in the area between the two roof pitches.

Internally, thin steel and wood shelving and kitchen units have been set against roughness of the bare concrete walls. The glazed rear of the house can be covered with white curtains.

In the bedrooms, pale timber lines the underside of the pitched roofs and, together with white wall finishes gives the rooms an added sense of height.

A thin water pool runs through the garden, matching the width of the facade's concrete volume, and a strip of grass matches the width of the travertine volume. At ground level, thin windows give glimpses into the large garage space housed in the basement.

Steyn Studio recently worked with South African firm TV3 Architects to design a chapel with an undulating cast concrete roof in Witzenberg, South Africa.

Photography is by Imagen Subliminal.

Project credits:

Architect: Steyn Studio
Technical architect: Roberto Rapino
Structural engineer: A6 Ingenieria

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Madrid-based Jorge Penadés tasked 14 international designers with creating objects no larger than a shoe box in this exhibition at Madrid Design Festival.

Called Extraperlo, the exhibition took place between 11 and 17 February 2019 in Penadés' warehouse-style home.

Designers were asked to deliver "bold ideas in small boxes", ranging from prototypes and models to one-off pieces made specifically for the event.

"It's very easy to impress people with big objects but it's a bit harder to dazzle the audience with small gestures," said Penadés.

"Extraperlo is based on risk. Experiments, exercises, hypotheses, discarded trials, essays, mistakes – everything is welcome," he continued.

Inspired by the Spanish word "extraperlo", which refers to the illegal trade of goods subject to some type of tax by the state, the exhibition aimed to recreate a small black market, where all the items on show were available to purchase.

"If a project gets sold the author will receive the full amount to refund the investment. We will not take a single euro for the Spanish government," explained Penadés.

Among the pieces was a model of a miniature wardrobe by Paris-based designer Marléne Huissoud, which is meant to resemble a cocoon. Made of clay, it has a round shape and a black, irregular surface.

"It is the fifth anniversary of my studio and I wanted to reflect on all the shapes and projects I did in the past. The little creatures [models] are a kind of library of what I have accomplished in the past five years," she said.

"Normally you make the models and then the final piece but for me, it's the opposite. I make the piece and then the models. I keep them as a statement of what I have done. It's just pure experimentation and a playful moment, to keep my practice as free as possible," she explained.

Another piece in the exhibition was a set of cutlery by British designer James Shaw. Titled Things We Touch Things We Use, the cutlery is made from stainless steel with amorphous-shaped handles made of high-density polyethylene.

Barcelona-based designer Nacho Alegre presented a brass lamp that has a long cylindrical neck and a lampshade made of a thin sheet of brass that has seemingly been crumpled against the bulb.

"I am attracted by a magnetic force towards an object, without any premeditation; then I am attracted to another object that when linked to the first produces a poetic shock," said Alegre.

Elsewhere, Catalan designer Christian Zuzunaga showcased 13 lead cubes, commonly used to hold letters together inside a letterpress.

"Ever since I discovered letterpress printing in 2004, I have been amazed by the weight and precision of the modular components that are used to hold and assemble type together,"  he said.

"These modular geometric forms are called quads and are considered the negative space since they are not printed and are only used to hold the letters," he explained.

For his project, Fernando Laposse showcased a rechargeable torch, inspired by the "chunky proportions" of children's toys.

The designer fashioned the body of the torch using birch wood and made the light diffuser out of loofah, a material more commonly used as a natural scrubber to be used in the shower.

Penadés paired up with local designer Julen Ussia to exhibit a series of faceted, rectangular objects made from "polyclayrene".

The duo combined expanded polystyrene, which Penadés had leftover from an old project, with Ussia's medium of choice, clay.

"Even though the function is left to the user's interpretation, the result is a hybridisation between one of the most polluting materials in the world and one of the most natural," said the pair.

Other designers on show included Tomás Alonso, Guillermo Santomá, Ilona Gaynor, Okolo, Kwangho Lee, Maria Cristina Didero, and duo Chen Chen and Kai Williams.

Madrid Design Festival took place between 1 and 28 February. Other exhibitions on show included one by Guillermo Santomà, who installed a series of sculptural and "transgressive" structures in the lavish interior of a baroque-style mansion in the Spanish capital.

Photography is by Geray Mena and IDC Studio.

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The second edition of the Madrid Design Festival saw designers create exhibitions across the Spanish capital. Our favourites include a showcase from mid-century furniture brand Darro and a series of sculptures inside a baroque mansion.

Madrid Design Festival 2019 took place from 1 to 28 February in various locations throughout the city, presenting both national and international projects, and offering visitors the opportunity to discuss and share ideas on the state of Spanish design.

Design reporter Gunseli Yalcinkaya reveals five of the best exhibitions on show:

Guillermo Santomà at Cerralbo Museum

Barcelona-based designer Guillermo Santomà installed a series of sculptural structures in the lavish baroque-style interior of the Cerralbo Museum, a 19th-century mansion and former home of the 17th Marquis of Cerralbo.

Each site-specific spatial intervention was made to correspond with a particular area in the mansion. These included a cluster of geometric lighting within a scaffold-like framework in the ballroom to a couch covered in thick purple resin in the Chamfered Corner Room – an area originally intended for sitting and lounging.

Craftsmanship at Centro Cultural Fernán Gómez de la Villa

This exhibition showcasing Spanish craftsmen from a host of disciplines aimed to demonstrate how craft objects can be integrated into our everyday lives, describing them as an "extremely important cultural manifestation".

Each object in the show was based on six core features of craftsmanship: culture, legacy, excellence, mastery of the trade, creativity and a strong relationship between the creator and owner of the object. Exhibits included a filament lamp, a table crafted from the trunk of a tree, and a traditional Flamenco guitar.

Extraperlo at a private location

Madrid-based Jorge Penadés invited a host of international designers to exhibit a selection of small objects – no bigger than a shoe box – in this black market-inspired exhibition.

"If a project gets sold, the designer will receive the full amount to refund the investment, not the Spanish government," said Penadés.

Designers involved included James Shaw who showed cutlery with stainless blades and amorphous handles made from high-density polyethylene, and a tiny "wardrobe" called Cocoon made from clay by Marlène Huissoud.

Darro at Centro Cultural Fernán Gómez de la Villa

This exhibition examined the legacy of relatively unknown Spanish mid-century furniture brand Darro, which is described as "one of most solid and transcendental ventures into Spanish modernity".

Showcasing 60 pieces of furniture from the brand's tenure of just 20 years, the show aimed to introduce visitors to the company and its work. Pieces included a low-level wooden cabinet in the mid-century style and the leather-seated armless Riaza chair.

Super Packaging at Centro Cultural Fernán Gómez de la Villa

With its supermarket-style layout, this exhibition explored the past, present and future of packaging and container design, from cans and aerosols to iconic products such as the Coca Cola bottle and the Campbell's soup can.

The exhibition also looked at the future of packaging, in particular sustainable and biodegradable design, including Roza Janusz's Scoby packaging and Don Kwaning's packaging made of wetland weed.

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Barcelona-based designer Guillermo Santomà installed a series of sculptural and "transgressive" structures in the lavish interior of a baroque-style mansion in Madrid.

Presented at Madrid Design Festival, which took place between 1 and 28 February 2019, the temporary installation was located in the Spanish capital's Cerralbo Museum, a 19th-century mansion and former home of the 17th Marquis of Cerralbo.

Intended to establish a "peculiar relationship with the permanent collection", the installation saw Santomà install site-specific spatial interventions to correspond with areas in the mansion.

The juxtaposition between Santomà's contemporary interventions and their baroque surroundings was meant to initiate a "dialogue between the 19th and 21st centuries".

"The exhibition constitutes a daring bet on contemporary design and the interpretation of historical spaces," said the museum, adding that the installation was "a personal reading of the museum" by Santomà.

The Miami Couch, for example, was located in the museum's Chamfered Corner Room – an area originally intended for sitting and lounging.

Consisting of a chaise lounge and a circular pouffe, the work is coated in a thick purple resin that appears to have been poured over the furniture to create a puddle-like mass that connects and surrounds both objects.

Also in the exhibition was a giant metal structure with neon lights called Disco, which was situated in the mansion's ballroom. It features an angular scaffold-like framework with a cluster of geometric lighting fixtures.

A jagged, light-blue structure that functions as a working piano was also located in the ballroom. Called Piano, the installation piece is made from craft foam and embedded with speakers, a modifier and a keyboard.

It was accompanied by an angular, translucent perspex seat "dripping" in purple and white foam.

The instrument was played by two pianists at the opening of the exhibition, in keeping with the "original use of the ballroom".

Elsewhere, a ceiling fixture called Thinking Chandelier – a meandering red and green translucent tube – hung over a traditional chandelier in the building's stairwell.

A geometric red structure called Escritorio Librerí, which translates as "writing desk", was placed in the building's library.

"Some pieces are integrated in a fluid and natural way in the environment, such as Miami Couch in the Chamfered Corner Room or Chandelier in the main staircase,"explained the Cerralbo Museum. "Others have, in appearance, a more transgressive presence."

Santomà explained that he felt connected to both the museum itself and its owner through the project.

"It gives me peace of mind that the museum is more baroque than I am. As if it has a familiar language, as if I have been taken into my own home," said Santomà.

"I feel conceptually part of the Marquis of Cerralbo with the idea of collecting an accumulation of things to create a space," he continued.

The Guillermo Santomà exhibition was on show between 1 and 28 February at the Cerralbo Museum in Madrid.

Santomà also exhibited his work at last year's Design Miami. His Sofa Pelo, shown by Barcelona's Side Gallery, was one of the many furry creations exhibited at the design fair.

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Sliding partitions and bright white surfaces helped Spanish studio Lucas y Hernández Gil open up this Madrid apartment, which previously contained a rabbit warren of rooms.

Casa P82 is set within a 20th-century apartment building in Madrid's city centre, and has been overhauled to feature a sequence of "flexible" rooms filled with natural light.

Formerly host to a number of dark, compartmentalised living spaces, the apartment's owner approached locally based Lucas y Hernández Gil to create a more comfortable layout so that she could regularly invite friends and family over.

Retaining the apartment's huge porthole windows, the studio knocked through a majority of the non-load bearing walls to free-up the floor plan.

The walls been replaced by full-height partitions that can be slid back and forth to provide privacy to different rooms – one appears between the living area and master bedroom. Here, the timber headboard of the bed also doubles up as a work desk, forming a small area where the inhabitant can sit and work.

More moveable partitions made from panes of fluted glass are also used in the corridor, partially obscuring the sleeping quarters.

A couple of concrete support beams were also preserved, which the studio hopes will offer a harsh contrast to the home's otherwise "delicate" furnishings like the wire-frame chairs.

The form of the apartment's original windows has then been echoed in the entryway, where a circular artificial skylight has been created.

Although a majority of surfaces have been freshened up with a coat of white paint, a pop of colour is offered by a gridded orange storage unit.

Its front and rear side features a series of thin bars that sit diagonally across the shelves, intended to emulate the geometric shapes seen in paintings by Swiss-German artist Paul Klee.

"The rigidity is provided by diagrammatic elements with different angles that create a score, a stave where books and objects are collected as musical notes," explained the studio.

"It aims to be a simple and delicate design, a functional yet expressive object."

The floors, kitchen cabinetry, and a handful of walls have been crafted from oiled oak wood.

This isn't the only period property that Lucas y Hernández Gil have worked on. Earlier this year the practice revamped an 18th-century guesthouse in Spain's Extremadura region, pairing its original arched ceilings and decorative doorways with new mortar walls.

Photography is by José Hevia.

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A bright blue wall and a giant window-side bath tub feature in this converted attic apartment by Gon Architects, in the Conde Duque district of Madrid.

Designed by Gonzalo Pardo, who runs his practice Gon in Madrid, G House is located in the attic of a four-storey building.

Intended for a single occupant, the architect said that the concepts of hedonism and pleasure informed design decisions throughout the apartment.

A bright blue staircase marks the entrance to the home. A kitchen, dining and living area sit to the right of the entrance, while the bedroom and study are to the left.

Straight ahead, a pine-clad volume in the centre of the apartment conceals a white Corian-covered bathroom that leads through to an all-black dressing room.

The bathroom and dressing room are accessed through the sunken bath tub that sits just off the living room area. The architect describes the unorthodox secret entrance as a design feature that adds an element of play and surprise into the interior.

"While the actions of cooking, eating, sleeping, relating, working or resting take place in a free environment defined by the shape and position of objects in the room, cleaning and body care are carried out in a set of connecting rooms in the heart of the house," said the architect.

To create a more social space, Gon removed all partition walls and instead let the furniture define the function and layout of each area.

Spaces designed for communal activities include the living area, which offers the opportunity to sit by the fire with friends in the winter and the terrace, which allows for socialising in summer.

There are also areas for more contemplative moments, such as bathing in the tub with the windows open.

The apartment benefits from a number of outdoor spaces including a 10-metre balcony garden to the north and two terraces oriented to the south that are accessed through the bedroom and the dining area.

On the north side of the apartment, the built-in white mosaic bathtub sits next to a double row of windows and skylights but is helpfully shielded from view by the plants on the narrow balcony.

In a similar project, earlier this year Florent Chagny Architecture overhauled a loft apartment in Paris, which featured heavy-duty materials, including oriented strand board and steel.

Photography is by Imagen Subliminal.

Project credits:

Collaborators: Alejandro Sánchez, Clara Dios
Construction: Alejandro Ruíz. serviteco obras sl
Carpentry: Mariano García. Alma Ebanistería sl
Kitchen design: Victoria González. vonnas

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