The project is based on the client's need to transform a warehouse into a home located in the center of the village in a street of row houses. The premise is to keep warehouse on the ground floor and renovate the first floor to convert it into an apartment.

 

The existing building is from 1980 and was built with construction techniques and materials characteristic of this use, with important structural limitations. This has made the weight of the apartment one of the key points when designing to minimize loads and having to make as few reinforcements as possible to the existing structure. The aim of this project has been to make a light housing.

 

To achieve this, wood has been used as the main material to build the structure and finishes, also achieving an increase in interior comfort both climatically and aesthetically. A reinforcement of the existing slab has been executed and the existing fiber cement roof has been replaced with two new ones.

 

Combining both roof slopes we achieve light entry into the central part of the house. Despite having the traditional tile finish to integrate into the urban context,the weight has been reduced in between 4 and 5 times compared to a conventional concrete structure. This has been achieved by using sandwich panel type insulation, intermediate wooden slabs and leaving the structure seen from the inside.