La casa festejadora | Piano Piano Studio

A family of four is ready to leave behind a 200-square-meter flat with huge spaces, large closets and windows in all rooms to live in an old house between party walls, elongated, labyrinthine where natural light is practically absent. 

They move from a bright and correctly layout apartment to a narrow house in which having a good layout and natural light will be the answers to achieving the well-being of all. 

From the beginning, we immediately realized that it was not only an architectural project, but also an accompanying project. The family, forced by the physical constraints, had to go through a process of adaptation to the characteristics of the new space. A process of understanding new ways of living, a process in finding the affinity with the materials that were in the house in which they were going to live, a process of becoming familiar with the lights and shadows of the new space they were about to occupy. We were responsible for making them feel comfortable on that path. 

At the programming stage, reorganizing a part of the house to be used by the girls was the objective. Our principle was to achieve a fluid space, infinite but fragmented, flexible, illuminated, warm and intimate as well as welcoming. 

To achieve this, six sliding doors were installed to allow lighting to come in, to ventilate and to manage the five bands in which the space that Irene and Isabel would live and to organize server and served spaces had been organized. Each sliding door would be linked to the next through and Irene and Isabel would be responsible of containing or opening the circulations and uses between them and being able to have 6 small, closed rooms or a large open and connected space. 

We clear the interior area of the house from its labyrinthine character due to the new organization of the space in the form of a barcode. In this way, it is achieved lit and ventilated spaces for Irene and Isabel: a band to smarten up, another band to dress up and show off their outfits, a rest band, and finally, fulfilling a requirement of the first day, a band related to the street that they would use sometimes to study and many others to celebrate. 

Finding the balance between gloss and matte, new and old, dark and light, smooth and rough was one of the bases of the project. The noble and dark materials that the house had, such as marble or wood, related to less shiny, smoother, and more neutral materials, reaching an elegant and practical intervention for the eyes of those who inhabit it 

At the same time, it was very important to be able to redirect natural light. We started from some difficult conditions to make light reach all the rooms, but because the infinite circulations created and the openings on the roof as a natural lantern, we were able to make the resulting space pleasant and welcoming