Gran Vía 15 | HRuiz-Velazquez Architecture and design

THE CHARM OF SPATIAL ORDER AND THE AMPLITUDE OF LIGHT.

The architect Héctor Ruiz Velazquez has designed with his unmistakable spatial capacity and experience, a unique and mature habitat that arises from the transformation into housing of former offices of an emblematic building of the Gran Vía street, in the center of Madrid, a box of dreams.

An innovative house inspired in the owner’s business character and his specific needs of functionality. The project is a total transformation of space, but maintaining the industrial and productive essence of this type of house.

This special transformation has been made with an envelope of white planes and natural wood surfaces. A combination which plays, repeats and differentiates throughout the spatial discourse that runs through each room, always with a unitary conception and continuity of space.

With this spectacular rehabilitation, a versatile habitability has been achieved. Compartmentalized to the millimeter in terms of operability: the walls are closets, the corridors are pools, and the fireplace is a kaleidoscope of mirrors, reflecting the fire and decorating with extreme care the main area of the house. All of it, with a great respect for the functionality, as usual in Ruiz Velazquez office.

The house is internally structured in a carefully designed circuit, where the rooms are hidden behind frameless doors that are integrated into continuous wooden panels. The resulting space maintains the privacy of each room and it is connected by its passageways with natural light coming from the courtyards. Extending towards the main facade in the main area of the house.

The reorganization of the floor plan and layout of the house expands from the interior to the exterior face through three differentiated and connected central axes or corridors. These connectors are fully staged and carefully covered by those two white and warm natural wood envelopes, which cover surfaces with two opposing materials that make up the style of coverage that the architect has chosen to create this innovative concept of home.

The intention of the architect with this project has been modulate the connection between rooms in an innovative way. Giving spatial continuity and functionality to the use but maintaining privacy. It has been possible by understanding and attending perfectly how people could move in this type of spaces, looking for the amplitude of movement, sensations and light.