Though a few costly construction setbacks carved a chunk out of the budget, creative interventions helped realize the residents’ priority: bring in more natural light.
When Álvaro Madrigal, a dancer with the Spanish National Dance Company, and Telmo Chacón went on their first date in 2021, Álvaro mentioned he was planning to buy a place in Madrid. “It was like ‘I’m looking for a house’ and ‘Well, I’m just trying to have dinner with you,’ ” jokes Telmo, a Zara Home business manager.
After buying an old, two-story townhouse in Madrid’s Entrevías neighborhood, Álvaro Madrigal (left) and his partner, Telmo Chacón, overhauled the space with the help of local firm Studio.Noju. They reworked the interior down to the foundation but kept the facade’s original burgundy color.
Photo: Adrian Morris
The couple were still going strong by the time one of Álvaro’s colleagues, who’d just renovated a home in the southeastern Entrevías neighborhood, told him that the property next door was going on the market later that year. The upside: The two-level townhouse was affordable, despite Madrid’s skyrocketing housing prices. (The historically working-class neighborhood of Entrevías is cut off from central Madrid by a series of railway tracks—hence its name, “between railways”—and has only recently started attracting a wave of young creatives.) The downside? Álvaro dreamed of a light-filled home with a terrace, and the house he toured—part of a block of nearly century-old townhomes built for construction workers raising the nearby dry port—was “dark” and “humid,” he says.
To create an open layout on the ground level, the original central staircase was moved to a side wall.
Photo: Adrian Morris
| $128,625 Existing Building |
$13,263 Foundation |
$18,289 Structural |
| $5,726 Finishes |
$8,674 Electrical |
$6,941 Plumbing |
| $3,344 HVAC Equipment |
$8,144 Kitchen |
$9,579 Millwork |
| $2,231 Appliances |
$15,675 Windows & Glazing |
$3,597 Metalwork |
| $4,410 Furnishings & Decor |
$3,528 Permitting |
$23,822 Contractor Fee |
| $17,338 Architect Fee |
$22,145 Other Labor |
$10,601 Demolition |
| $3,138 Waste Removal |
||
| Grand Total: $309,070 | ||
Álvaro’s sister put him in contact with her childhood friend Antonio Mora, an architect who in 2020 cofounded Madrid firm Studio.Noju with his husband, Eduardo Tazón. “It was a small space that needed a lot of change, so it became one of those projects that we really needed to make the most out of every square inch,” Tazón says.
Upstairs, a space Álvaro describes as “polivalente” (multipurpose) is furnished with a small sofa bed from Maisons du Monde—the couple like having friends over—and coffee tables and stools from Telmo’s employer, Zara Home. “The house is his house,” Telmo says, “but everything to do with making this a home…it’s our baby.”
Photo: Adrian Morris
See the full story on Dwell.com: Striking Ceramic Screens Take a Cramped Madrid Townhouse From Dark to Delightful for $309K
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