Prado Toro

Jordi Costa — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 08:27:13 +0000

Architects: Extrarradio Estudio Photography: Asier Rúa Construction Period: 2025 Location: Sierra de Gredos, Spain

Nestled within a meadow on the outskirts of a small village in the Sierra de Gredos, Prado Toro is born from the desire to disconnect, a deep immersion in nature, and a compulsive reading of Walden . This compact retreat is conceived as a sanctuary for summer and weekend escapes, offering an elemental yet profound living experience.

The project draws inspiration from the region’s traditional agricultural structures—small-scale, low-height buildings used for storing tools and livestock with minimal material investment. Prado Toro reimagines this archetype, expanding upon the notion of a rural outbuilding to accommodate modern needs.

However, rather than extending the footprint, the intervention unfolds vertically. A shell-like structure rises above the basic form, creating an open-plan, lofted interior that houses a living space, a compact kitchen, and a sleeping area. This new envelope is clad in ceramic tiles, a fundamental material in the traditional architecture of the Castilian highlands, ensuring protection against the region’s heavy rains and westerly winds. Inside, pinewood surfaces reinforce the typological purity of the cabin.

The service spaces—kitchen, bathroom, and an upper-level sleeping platform—are arranged as a freestanding volume at the core of the structure, deliberately detached from the outer walls. This preserves the sense of openness and accentuates the raw, monolithic presence of the tiled shell. The sleeping area’s placement in the upper section serves not only spatial but also thermal purposes: the central wood-burning fireplace heats the upper layers first, ensuring warmth during winter nights.

The structure also functions as a retaining wall. Embedded into the natural slope, the cabin defines an exterior terrace, an informal gathering space for warm summer evenings or crisp winter breakfasts. This semi-buried strategy enhances the building’s thermal performance, as three of its sides are naturally insulated by the earth.

Additionally, the embedded position diminishes its apparent scale, allowing the tiled shell to blend seamlessly into the landscape while remaining rooted in the region’s architectural language.

Positioned at the highest point of the meadow, the cabin captures unobstructed views of the Sierra, facing eastward towards a stream that marks the site’s boundary. The adjacent terrace serves as a threshold between the cabin and the community, fostering interaction with visitors and neighbors. Its east-west orientation ensures ample sunlight throughout the day, while openings on all four elevations enable cross-ventilation, allowing fresh mountain air to circulate freely during warmer months.

Prado Toro stands as a dialogue between tradition and contemporary living, a discreet yet expressive structure that embraces the rural landscape while reinterpreting its essence.

Text provided by the architects.

La entrada Prado Toro se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

Artistas

Jordi Costa — Sun, 05 May 2024 15:31:36 +0000

Architects: Nomos Architects Photography: Asier Rúa Construction Period: 2024 Location: Madrid, Spain

The apartment is situated on a portion of the third floor within a small residential building, flanked by neighboring structures, dating back to the early 20th century in Tetuán neighborhood. It has windows facing both Artistas Street and the inner courtyard of the block.
The spatial arrangement is defined by four separate sections, delineated by load-bearing walls parallel to the building’s facades. Within these confines are two bedrooms with limited natural light and ventilation. The kitchen and bathroom overlook the inner courtyard, while the living room and main bedroom open up to Artistas Street through three balconies. The existing layout doesn’t align with the needs of the future inhabitant of the dwelling.

The transformation project focuses especially on resolving this programmatic challenge. First, by identifying the spatial entities defined by the four bays of the dwelling. Second, by converting the central space into a multifunctional element serving the perimeter spaces, acting as a vestibule, distributor, kitchen, storage, dressing room, laundry, and bathroom all at once. Third, by proposing a space for daytime activities (living and dining area) facing the street, and a space for nighttime-use (bedroom and study) facing the inner courtyard.

This rational approach to redistributing and conceptualizing spaces is visually disrupted by the introduction of two circular granite surfaces that deviate from the established order. These surfaces blur the lines between different areas, connecting them and accommodating various functions along their path.

This break with the inherent order of space is emphasized by the material and chromatic choices, applied as a pop collage, reflecting the client’s lifestyle and preferences. In this sense, a variety of materials such as national granite, birch plywood, sandy ceramic tile flooring, blue porcelain stoneware, varnished yellow MDF board, mirrors, and various metallic elements painted in green are introduced. The goal is to endow the new home with a timeless quality from the 21st century, connecting the multiple times of inhabiting the dwelling while preserving the textures and traces of the existing surfaces, reflecting the previous life of the residence.

Text provided by the architect.

La entrada Artistas se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

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Prado Toro

Artistas