Located on a rocky slope in the western outskirts of Madrid, this 2,691-square-foot concrete, glass, and steel house turns its back to the surroundings and interacts instead with the distant Pardo forest and Madrid’s skyline.
Design concept and solution:
The house denies the surroundings and the abrupt topography of the site by delicately leaning on the rocks with a large horizontal plane that defines the footprint of the building. Organized into two independent parts with multiple layers, the house’s lowest level contains service and utility areas as well as parking. The main entrance to the upper volume is up an almost hidden staircase situated around a giant rock.
The house denies the surroundings and the abrupt topography of the site by delicately leaning on the rocks with a large horizontal plane that defines the footprint of the building. Organized into two independent parts with multiple layers, the house’s lowest level contains service and utility areas as well as parking. The main entrance to the upper volume is up an almost hidden staircase situated around a giant rock.
One single double-height volume contains the rest of the program. It is a hermetic, horizontal prism related to the “footprint plane” in its placement, shape, and dimension. It is within this volume where two layers support the living sections of the house. Against the hillside, the almost hanging concrete box containing private areas hovers over the lower, glass-walled level, protecting it from the sun while preserving views to the horizon. This glazed section contains kitchen, dining, and living spaces and opens to the pool area outside.
A unique bay window—a horizontal void that runs almost the entire width of the concrete box—provides a framed view of the skyline and brings natural light into the first floor, allowing the sun to enter diagonally into the ground floor through the central double height.
