Casa Triana

The intervention transforms the spatial and programmatic structure of the old apartment, defined as a sequence of small rooms into a new organization where the spaces are not defined by physical partitions but by a common language of textures, materials and colors creating niches that open to the space, each of them with an identity and program of its own. So the yellow dining room, the green kitchen, the black bathroom, etc. All of them belong in the same space but somehow create separate and unique living areas. To accommodate guests a blue curtain that is stowed in a niche in the living room can be deployed to create a privacy partition within this space. The idea for these niches was to make them contrast with the more neutral white and grey box that is the living room. We achieved this by using not only color to differentiate one another but also texture. All of these spaces use a similar textured geometry that gives coherence and depth to these niches. We used the triangular shape to create this backdrops as it creates an interesting rhythm of light and shadow throughout the day, in contrast with the flatness of the white wall. The main material we used to create the dining room, kitchen and closet space is actually a pretty typical construction product: we used metal ridge caps (or “cumbreras” in Spanish) which are traditionally used to top gable roofs. This cheap and easy to get material allowed us to create these “textured” backdrops for the niches. From there other elements of the apartment followed, such as the curtain, that uses a ripple fold textile to simulate the same play of shadows as the ridge caps when laid vertically. Many of the colors we used in the apartment are very traditionally “Sevillian” colors that can be easily found on the streets, so a lot of the inspiration for the apartment came from the cityscape itself. Unintentionally you could say that there is a likeness in the attention to color and texture in much of the facades of the old town.