BURR converts old madrid warehouse into a writer's home and studio

protecting Madrid’s industrial heritage

BURR continues its industrial recovery of Madrid with ‘Blasón’, the conversion of a former warehouse into a home and studio for writer Juan Ramón Silva Ferrada. The project is part of a series in which the studio gives new life to old industrial buildings and protects them from being torn down.

‘Industrial buildings in the urban fabric are under risk of extinction,’ explains BURR. ‘Our proposals aim to become a strategic toolset to protect the industrial heritage of the city through land-use and occupation alternatives that allow to extend this typology’s life and avoid its demolition.’

images by Maru Serrano

a central spine of organization

Blasón is conceived as one single volume organized by a large central wall, or ‘spine’. This spine contains the building services and also functions as a division between public and private spaces. One on side of the wall is a double-height kitchen, living and dining area while the other side contains a bedroom and shower room on the first floor and a second bedroom and writer’s studio on the mezzanine level.

Built from white concrete blocks, the central wall projects in places to create ledges, abutments, and buttresses. These projections adapt to the functions that each space requires, becoming, for example, a support structure for the kitchen or a platform for the metal staircase. Meanwhile, openings appear along the wall provide access to the bedrooms and bathrooms.

For the roof, BURR preserved the original structure but avoided increasing the thickness of its structural elements by adding steel bars to strengthen it instead.

a blue metal balcony was added to the mezzanine level studio

restoring the courtyards

The architects also restored the original courtyards, which had been built up over the years to extend the internal floor area. These restored spaces ensure natural light, cross ventilation, and open up the home to private outdoor ‘rooms’.

Opening up the courtyards also meant that BURR could celebrate the rear façade, which picks up the rhythm of the original pilasters of the boundary walls. All the exterior walls are materially unified with a rough mortar, called Tyrolean plaster, that ties in with the creamy colored concrete blocks. Of course, in signature BURR style, the neutral color palette of this former warehouse turned home and studio is activated by pops of bold blue and energetic yellow.

the volume is organized by the central wall