LVL Residence by Ábaton Arquitectura
LVL Residence is a modern two-story house located in Madrid, Spain, redesigned in 2020 by Ábaton Arquitectura.
Description
Plot of land on the outskirts of Madrid of 2.500m2 where renovation and extension was carried out resulting in a house of approximately 600m2.
“We found this house for our clients”. The original construction was from the 60’s, it had a beautiful plot, with valuable trees and excellent location, but it lacked light and spaces of architectural quality, so we had to work to generate them.
To do this, we kept the east and west modules of the structure and demolished the central part, thus generating the volumes we needed for the main spaces of the house: living room, dining room and kitchen on the first floor and master bedroom upstairs. In this area, we achieved a ceiling height of more than 3 m where before they did not reach 2.40 m and generated a central courtyard garden around which the main uses of the house are structured, thus causing an entrance of natural light in the center of the house. In addition to providing light, this courtyard improves the energy efficiency of the house, as it allows its opening during summer nights without compromising safety, cooling the whole house naturally. The interior-exterior border disappears here, since the perimeter was finished off with large sliding windows that disappear completely, flooding the house with light, a continuous space throughout the entire floor. It is also conceived as a passage space between the living room and the dining room or between the kitchen and the living room. We looked for the sensation of putting the garden inside the house to achieve a constant link with nature. In this project we took great care of the landscaping project, to enjoy a multitude of plant varieties from every corner of the house, which change color with the passing of the seasons. With our intervention, we tried to envelop the house by adding value to the overwhelming pre-existing vegetation.
The distribution of the main floor seeks the practical side of daily life, the link between the different spaces that allows family members to be always in contact with each other and the feeling of contact with nature blurring the indoor-outdoor border.
A curious detail of this house is in the fireplace, which can be opened both to the living room and to the outside porch, to extend the use of this space when it starts to cool.
The bedrooms were distributed upstairs. The master bedroom has a huge window that allows the south façade to be completely open to the exterior, both in the bedroom space and in the bathroom. Both spaces are visually united, as they are only separated by a closet that does not reach the ceiling, expanding the feeling of space in both rooms.
The children’s and guest bedrooms were renovated over the structure of the old house, creating spaces with a sloping roof, a vestige of the original house.
Part of the structure was made with a system called LVL: a laminated wood system that has been developed in demand by the construction industry. LVL is designed to be stronger than steel, but lighter than concrete and yet very adaptable and durable and has proven its worth to be the choice of choice when talking about structural applications. Today, it is driving a new wave of agile and renewable construction, and gives us the opportunity to learn about the wonders of wood.
Photography by Belén Imaz
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- by Matt Watts
