Gozona
Luanco, Asturias
In collaboration with Isla Architects
Completed 2022

In Luanco, a charming but traditional Asturian fishing village on the Atlantic coast of Spain, a family sought a functional, flexible, and playful house. The project takes a creative approach in its interpretation of stringent traditionalist planning regulations in a bid to reimagine the typical Luanco house. A narrow and deep trapezoidal plot between party walls is flanked by a public cornfield to the south, and a private garden overlooking Luanco port to the north. The depth and proportion of the plan necessitates a connection between the two main facades. From the entry hall, the large dining-kitchen-living room opens generously onto the courtyard, through a folding window that blurs the limit between interior and exterior. 

A playful winding stair carves a meandering passage through the house, adapting itself to land on each level to the central space of the house, place of direct connection between the two facades. On the first floor this space gives access to the two bedrooms, the laundry, and the bathroom. On the second floor the connection between the two facades is made by the extrusion of the “Ventana marinera” which at its intersection with the gable roof generates a cross space. The windows frame views of the harbor, the adjacent hills and serve as flexible spaces: desk, games area, living room, bedroom. The four corners around the cross house three closed rooms: a bathroom, a wardrobe, and a utility room as well as a triple height above the first flight of stairs. This vertical space connects all levels and takes advantage of the chimney effect to naturally cool the house.

The large openings on the facade are clad with traditional wooden shutters, as is the front door, which allows for cross ventilation between the two facades in addition to controlling the privacy of the house. These shutters, the eaves and other details are painted a deep blue, in keeping with local tradition, integrating the house into the colorful Soledad Street. The courtyard, bound by an existing horseshoe-shaped stone wall, extends the interior of the house with polished concrete islands that encourage the growth of native vegetation. A small basin cools off the residents on the hottest summer days.

Photo: © Luis Díaz Díaz

Holzhaus
Styria, Austria
Planned completion 2023

The program for this house in an idyllic Austrian mountain village was clear: "a wooden house, full of books and integrated into the environment". The project is part of a group of houses belonging to the same family. Each unit fulfils a programmatic function within the ensemble, in our case, it will be a library as well as a home.  We avoided creating an architecture and then furnishing it: we turned the bookcase into a structural element that through repetition forms a neutral volume.  A wooden building, resting on a stone plinth and covered with a pitched roof, in line with the local vernacular.
 

Architecture office M MM/A
Gijón, Spain
Completed 2021  

For our Gijón studio we chose a 1930s residential building as our site. The existing structural system was reinforced with steel profiles, which allowed for longer spans and a generous open space. Exposing the concrete ceiling slab reveals both the original construction technique and traces of the old layout. The service elements are arranged around the building's stair core, creating three spaces: kitchen, office and meeting. A neutral container for the creation of new projects.
Photo: © Iván Morán G-R

Caveda 12
Gijón, España
Completed 2021

The eight owners of a 1930s residential building coordinate a collective structural and energy renovation of their dwellings. Through the strategic placement of structure and bathrooms the project is able to solve the various layout needs. The two ground floor short rental flats are connected, allowing them to be rented individually or together. The polished concrete terrace is transformed into bleacher seating looking onto the Atlantic garden. The folding door allows the garden to be divided according to whether the flats are rented together or separately. On the first floor, the neighbors opt for a layout of three bedrooms plus living room with integrated kitchen. Our architectural studio on the second floor is configured as a large open space that connects the two facades. The space under the roof on the third floor is used to create a mezzanine and a double height space that reveals the existing wooden truss.  The project provides solutions to the different needs of the clients without sacrificing the original character of the building and maximizing its energy efficiency.
Foto: © Iván Morán G-R

Rioseco
Asturias, Spain
Planned completion 2023   

A traditional single-family house located in a village in the Asturian mountains is the place chosen by a couple to settle. The exterior envelope remains unaltered preserving the language of its context, while the interior is emptied to accommodate new programmatic needs. The central staircase is the spine of the house and organizes uses into programmatic strips: gallery space linked to living area, service area, and double-height day area. On the ground floor, the multipurpose area is the leisure space, which includes the playful element of the slide and the connection to the garden.

Lamminrahka School Center
Finland
In collaboration with Lindroos Architects
Competition 2019

A school center, landmark and meeting place in the new Lamminrahka district. The main volume of the building houses the lobby, restaurant and public areas and is located in the main square of the city creating a landmark within the new urban landscape. The school activities are organized in a staggered manner, adapting to the avenue, breaking the volumetry to a scale in accordance with the surroundings and creating a variety of interstitial outdoor spaces that house the different activities of the school. The organization allows for a large green space to the south that links to the municipal sports facilities.

Vitra Pelota, temporary exhibition
Salone del Mobile 2018, Milan, Italy
Executive Architect
Completed 2018

The designer Robert Stadler, who curated and staged the exhibition, has created an expansive panorama of some 200 objects, drawing on the extensive Vitra archives to juxtapose current products with classics, prototypes, special editions and future visions. The show places a central focus on the social function of furniture in society.
The exhibition ‘Typecasting’ offers a new view of Vitra. In the spacious Pelota arena, a panoramic display of around 200 objects portrays the past, present and future of ‘Project Vitra’. Robert Stadler, who curated and designed the show, emphasizes the social role of furniture – and of chairs in particular – as a key theme. Along with their obvious practical use as seating, chairs have historically always had an additional representative function: the selection of a specific chair is also a personal act of image cultivation.
Photo: © Julien Lanoo
Photo 2: © Marco Menghi

RED, Bookshop & Bistro
Corso Garibaldi, Milan, Italy
In collaboration with Obelo, Teresa Meana & Marianna Merisi
Completed 2018

RED concept integrates the tradition of the Feltrinelli bookshops with Italian culinary tradition, generating a new cultural space. Two historic residential buildings on Corso Garibaldi were linked for the new RED: a sequence of small spaces on two levels, originally designed for domestic use. A new axis is opened connecting the street with three patios, generating light and spaces that combine the new public scale with the domestic atmosphere of the current building. The old materials and the new steel reinforcements are left “as found” revealing the history of the place.
Photo: © Studio Shafei

Feeniks Church
Ylivvieska, Finland
In collaboration with: Lindroos Architects, Studio Shafei & Pedrocchi Architects
Competition 2017

In 2016 the central church of Ylivieska, Finland, was destroyed in an act of arson that levelled the 18th-century wooden structure into a pile of ash. The proposal uses the original church section drawing as a source of design, creating a new building from the act of remembrance and exploring the importance of memory in architecture. The new building serves the function of the former church while creating a contemporary structure that responds to its context in a new way that integrates the renewed ruins of the old temple.

RED, Bookshop & Bistro
City Life, Milan, Italy
In collaboration with Obelo & Teresa Meana
Completed 2017

RED concept integrates the tradition of the Feltrinelli bookshops with Italian culinary tradition, generating a new cultural space. The RED City Life is located in a new shopping mall close to the centre of Milan. The challenge is to create a specific location within a generic place. A light wood structure defines the limit of the shop while the combination of the program is set on a chessboard layout that allows the user to combine and overlap both functions (bookshop and restaurant) while keeping an independent path for each of them.
Photo: © Iván Morán G-R

El Bosque de la Maga Colibrí, Bookshop
Gijón, Spain
In collaboration with Teresa Meana & Marilys Meana
Completed 2014

El Bosque de la Maga Colibrí is a reading promotion project that combines a quality bookshop with the enhancement of reading in all areas. After becoming a reference at both the regional and state level in their former location, they sought out a new site that would allow for an increased range of activities and a new cultural meeting point for the city.
The project takes advantage of the complexity of the existing furniture warehouse - a linear shop with three distinct entrances - creating areas that can be used together or independently. The collaboration with the client helped to generate program from spaces and spaces from programs in turn.
The bookshop is organized around a ramp/stair that solves accessibility, acts as a bookshelf as well as a reading stand. A large sliding door connects this first space with the workshops and the multifunctional space with its stage excavated on top of an existing parking ramp. The finishes are left white as an architectural background for the vivid figure of the books and activities that take place there.
Photo: Iván Morán G-R