F451 Arquitectura: house + atelier

Spanish architecture studio F451 Arquitectura has recently completed a single family house and artist studio in Gijón, Spain. The building's dual function mirrors the determination to hybridise two diverse typologies: the modern house and the industrial shed, with large windows facing north.

The full program defines four autonomous, interrelated units: house, guest apartment, atelier and garage. These accompany the site's particular topography, a sloped terrain where the "hybrid" volume is integrated.

Because of the site's particularities, the resulting dwelling does not land on the ground but changes the relationship with it as the plan progresses. The volume emerges from the terrain in one of the extremes, aligns the house with the garden in the central area and finally detaches itself in the west side.

In the centre of the house, an open hallway — designed as an exterior, roofed space — marks the moment in which house and artist's studio merge. "It becomes the area of relationship of the different programs," state the architects, "and works as a climatic regulator for them."

The architects sought to create a dwelling with superior landscape integration and energetic efficiency. Thus, the merging between the house and the atelier happens in such a way that every space features double orientation, lighting and ventilation. The construction is based on a metal corrugated plate exposed in the interior, with a thermal layer of 10cm that covers all the volume and with an exterior finished of flexible stucco on fiber reinforced resins. The vertical walls are made of honeycomb clay block that reinforce the thermal insulation from the outside and increases the interior thermal lag. In the guest apartment, the thermal blanket is substituted by a garden roof that establishes continuity between the garden and the building and provides for similar insulation.

F451 Arquitectura: house and atelier for artist Lara Rios
Architects: F451 Arquitectura (Santi Ibarra, Toni Montes, Lluís Ortega, Xavier Osarte & Esther Segura)
Team: Juan Gándara, Vives Oriol, Jordi Ribó
Interior design: Laia Isern
Structure consultant: Manuel Arguijo
Quantity surveyor: José Piedra
Location: Gijón, Spain
Area: 395 square metres
Construction: Cejoysa
Steel works (structure & furniture): Alfer