Rio House / HANGHAR
Text description provided by the architects. The average cost of a home in Madrid is beyond the reach of most people, a crisis which is defining the lives of many generations. The project is located in the rapidly-gentrifying neighbor- hood of Carabanchel, where, due to the affordable housing crisis the city is currently suffering, many citizens are moving to.
The project tackles such situation by providing a raw, unfinished setting that allows the inhabitants to renovate their home within a limited budget while saving build costs. This naked scenario poses the possibility of allowing future interventions to occur and distance it- self from market driven logics in which finishes and fittings make for a large percentage of the developer’s profit.
The apartment’s original distribu- tion is maintained and enhanced by the construction of a technically equipped wall that contains the plumbing, elec- trical cabling and storage for both the kitchen and the bathroom. Covered in raw aluminum, it sets an abstract background that reflects not only light, but the domestic activities that occur around a large, monolithic working surface. The apartment’s structure, a grid-like system of steel I-beams and pillars, organizes the space and delimitates the hierarchy between the public and private areas.
The materiality is raw and basic. The home’s reflective, continuous ep- oxy resin floor contrasts with the grotesque and cavernous presence of the splashed plaster ceiling. The kitchen’s working station and bathroom are covered in simple, ceramic tiling: durable and water-proof. The environment, grey and monotonous, a result of the nakedness of the space, is elevated with limited de- tailing in local red marble.
