TAKK, The Day After House, Madrid

With the intention of portraying an entire generation, Los años nuevos tells the story of a couple over the course of ten New Year’s Eves, and in it are reflected many of the concerns that assault people in their thirties: employment insecurity, work-life balance, the Angst of coming of age… But the recent Spanish series directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen leaves out a problem that dominates the life of the characters’ contemporaries: access to a dwelling. On screen, he rents an apartment on his own, which in itself is prohibitive, and she, though seemingly sharing a flat at the start, moves from one to another several times, with nary a word about how hard that really is. In this sense the Norwegian production The Architect is more accurate, showing young citizens doomed to miniscule units and huge sacrifices to pay for them: a dystopic future but with alarming glints of current realities.

Until we see the housing-stock expansion that many argue is the solution to today’s residential crisis, a process sure to take years, what choice is there but to look for accommodations in the already built domain, which is increasingly unobtainable and generally aged; in other words, all we can do is settle for units that are ever smaller and less and less in keeping with new standards. In consequence, as during the post-bubble recession, renovations have become fertile ground for formulating and testing ways to make the most of floor area available, and in so doing improve the quality of buildings significantly. A great opportunity for architects still searching their bearings in the field, who, in the face of restricted access to competitions and the lack of commissions of substance, can finally find firm ground in the profession, through these small takes on the domestic sphere, which, more often than not, are seen no longer as stepping stones to projects of larger scale, but as the very marrow of their practices.

Arquitectura Viva presents the situation through six refurbishments carried out by young Spanish teams in the Barcelona and Madrid orbits; a dossier of recipes that ignite hopes of a more feasible and comfortable tomorrow. The Relámpago House by h3o architects and A Doorless House by Casa Antillón compartmentalize their diminutive spaces – a barn and an attic – with a clear gesture reinforced by electric colors. For their part, the A29 Unstable studio by MACH and La Maison-en-Valise by Pedro Pitarch each concentrate equipment and storage at their centers so that the rest of the home flows – on both sides in one case, around in the other – and gives an effect of breadth. Finally, Àvila 77 by Aramé Studios and the Soma House by NULA.STUDIO are more generous homes that arrange the bedrooms in compact bands in dialogue with the structure – concrete porticos and timber frame, respectively – and fuse the more public zones in a large space.

Pachón–Paredes, Non-Binary Cross Space III, Madrid