Dwelling areas are organized round a central courtyard at this home in Valencia, Spain, which native studio Viruta Lab has designed to rejoice the legacy of influential feminist artist Ángela García Codoñer.
Casa Gesso goals to ascertain a dialogue between up to date structure and among the pioneering work created by the artist within the Seventies, deconstructing how girls had been historically portrayed in Spanish society.
Viruta Lab founders David Puerta and María Daroz are followers of García Codoñer, who’s finest identified for her collages, display screen prints and acrylic work that includes stylised depictions of the feminine type.
García Codoñer was additionally Puerta’s professor on the Valencia College of Structure and later his mentor on the college’s Creative Heritage Fund.
He defined that the artist’s strategy to color and type knowledgeable the fabric palette and minimalist aesthetic of the home, which he described as a “liveable clean canvas” for reflecting on her work.
“In essence, it’s a dwelling that enables one to inhabit the concepts of Ángela García Codoñer and demonstrates that residential areas may also be conceived for reflection and questioning established norms,” the duo mentioned.
The 145-square-metre property within the suburb of Picanya consists of two volumes that replicate the completely different heights of the neighbouring buildings.
The principle residing areas are contained inside a one-and-a-half-storey excessive construction that adjoins a two-storey excessive block housing the bedrooms and loos.
The constructing’s facades are clad with vertical bone-white porcelain tiles chosen to evoke the time-honored washhouses that when housed native artists’ studios.
A courtyard on the centre of the home gives pure delicate and air flow to the lounge and kitchen-dining room situated on both facet.
This house is clad with the identical porcelain tiles because the facades to create a way of continuity between inside and exterior, whereas a bit of the adjoining hallway ground is completed with slimline tiles to match the courtyard’s floor.
“The day space sequence consists of three fully pure architectural prisms, geometrically and visually uninterrupted, with the second being a void positioned between two solids, emphasising views by transparency,” Puerta instructed Dezeen.
“These volumes are designed as excellent areas of tranquil and contemplation, appropriate for working or exhibiting artworks like an exhibition corridor, thus projected with half-height ceilings.”
Every of the residing areas in Casa Gesso was impressed by a specific sequence in García Codoñer’s oeuvre, with furnishings, materials and synthetic lighting chosen to strengthen their completely different themes.
“Throughout the design’s opulent particulars, the impact of tranquil and unity permits Ángela García Codoñer’s work to dominate the house, changing into the architectural protagonist, supported by altering parts like delicate that make their nuances vibrate in various methods,” mentioned Daroz.
The lounge on the dwelling’s entrance homes a 1979 work from her Labores sequence exploring historically feminine handicrafts, which Viruta Lab referenced by the inclusion of rugs, upholstery parts and ornamental particulars that evoke cross-stitch.
A portray from the 1973 Morfologías sequence, by which García Codoñer deconstructed the way in which girls are portrayed in Spanish society, options within the kitchen. Right here, rounded kinds recall the sinuous shapes discovered within the work, whereas a feminine bust gives a focus within the courtyard.
A wall that extends the total size of the home and separates its two programmatic volumes is lined with storage that comes with a door resulting in a hid staircase connecting the 2 flooring.
The principle bed room homes a 1974 collage from the Misses sequence, which denounced the objectification of ladies in magnificence pageants. The work is paired with a tweed headboard alluding to the careful “building” of the feminine picture, in addition to the artist’s collage work.
A pared-back materials palette creates a way of heat and neutrality all through the inside. Gigantic-format porcelain tiles used for the flooring are complemented by the pure tone of the stained-oak cabinetry, whereas upholstery introduces a softer component to the scheme.
The architects instructed Dezeen that the way in which Casa Gesso is organised and adorned leads to areas which might be appropriate for observing and experiencing García Codoñer’s work, with out explicitly feeling like an exhibition.
“Structure, with its constraints, was designed to completely reply to the preliminary idea, and along with materiality, they cohesively created this universe of reflection,” Daroz mentioned.
“Areas possess particular capabilities and are created for actions however we tried to blur the immovable strains limiting them, enabling them to serve functions past their preliminary design.”
Daroz and Puerta based Viruta Lab in 2020 as a mirrored image of their shared inventive and architectural passions. The studio goals to ship natural, sultry and timeless areas that stability perform with emotion.
Earlier tasks by Viruta Lab embrace the renovation of a former fisherman’s home in Valencia’s El Cabanyal neighbourhood, that includes chequerboard tiles that reference the constructing’s nautical heritage.
