Gandía Apartment
Gandía Apartment
DETAILS
Full renovation | Design, documentation and construction management
Year 2025
110 m2 | 3 Bedrooms | 2 Bathroom | Balcony & Winter Garden
Photographs by German Cabo
TEAM
Pedro Garcia, Maaike Pullar
A domestic topography. An urban retreat
The project undertakes the renovation of a mid‑20th‑century apartment located in the centre of Gandia, approaching refurbishment as a spatial transformation rather than a mere programmatic rearrangement. The intervention updates the dwelling to contemporary living standards through a unified reading of space, materiality and light, making use of the original perimeter conditions of the building.
The proposal is structured around the notion of a domestic topography. The interior is conceived as a continuous environment generated through the manipulation of a single material plane associated with ground, stone and earth. This plane rises, folds and is carved to produce both spatial organization and everyday elements: kitchen, storage, bathrooms, headboards and perimeter wainscots emerge as configurations of the same system, dissolving the boundary between architecture and built‑in furniture.
Upon this dense and grounded base, lighter and more chromatic elements are placed, resting on the topography and accommodating daily uses while introducing material and visual contrast. These elements operate as a superimposed layer—more mutable and ephemeral—completing the domestic landscape. Lighting reinforces this duality through suspended linear fixtures that construct a floating plane, deliberately contrasting with the continuously modulated surface below.
The tension between heavy and light, between continuity and superposition, compresses and releases space according to use, providing each area with a distinct spatial character without relying on conventional compartmentalization.
The dwelling opens to three orientations and establishes a direct relationship with the exterior through two elements embedded in the domestic topography that act as small oasis : the existing balcony facing the main street and a newly created internal winter garden. Both are defined by a checkered floor of white and teracotta tiles that signals a shift in spatial condition, mediating between interior and exterior, domesticity and the urban context.
The interior reorganization eliminates the corridor and concentrates daily life within a continuous living space, with the kitchen positioned centrally. The living room and main bedroom face the street, while the secondary bedrooms open onto the block courtyard. Inserted between them, the winter garden introduces additional natural light, enables cross‑lighting from three orientations and brings vegetation into the core of the home.
The resulting spatial logic is closer to that of a house than a conventional apartment, articulating open sequences and interconnected spaces within a compact envelope.
Materiality draws on a Mediterranean imaginary interpreted through abstraction. The stone topography provides weight and permanence, anchoring the space to the ground, while green ceramic surfaces introduce a lighter, more seasonal character. Gold and orange tones complete a palette that evokes the local landscape without literal references.
The project is conceived as a unitary and almost monumental interior, constructing a sheltered, calm retreat in contrast to the intensity of the surrounding urban environment.