Móstoles, Madrid

This small residential building is inserted in a neighborhood built in the 60s and 70s of the last century as the first expansion of the city of Móstoles, in the southern metropolitan area of Madrid.

The urban tissue is made up of brick buildings, with small windows and some terraces that are systematically closed by its inhabitants, expanding the interior living area in an inefficient way. To build a residential building in this environment means working, fundamentally, with the façade: its openings, its language, its urban image.

Geometry

The building is located on an almost rectangular plot, respecting a back patio which is shared with the neighboring building. This patio, together with the mandatory street alignment and the maximum height allowed, make up a simple capable volume with a C-shaped floor plan. The floor plan is organized around a core centered on the patio façade, providing three apartments per floor. Following a classic scheme, the day areas are arranged towards the street, grouped in a large square room, and the night areas towards the interior of this patio.

The section takes advantage of the maximum height allowed for the ground floors to resolve an awkward situation: these ground floors are generally occupied by dwellings, too exposed to pedestrians. To improve this situation, these apartments rise above the ground, acquiring certain privacy.

Madrid-style balconies

The facade to the street is presented as an abstract canvas on which 28 identical balconies are open. The canvas’s basis is a stone plinth, made of traditional stone mortar, hosting 6 additional openings and the building access.

The balconies are thickened in a Madrid-style way, also popular in the historic center of Móstoles: with precast folded steel sheet frames, which add thickness to the opening and unify the window, the window blinds and the balcony’s railing in a single monochrome element, very light and very transparent.