Urban Villa in Madrid | Jacobo García-Germán

The new building results from a symmetry of two twin houses, which add up to conform to the appearance of a large contemporary bourgeois urban villa, located close to the former Garden-City of Colonia Residencia in the north of Madrid. Most of the area’s architecture is listed, and the new building is made possible only by means of reproducing the overall volume of the plot’s former construction. Inside this tight envelope, a vertical sequence unfolds as the natural piling of a variety of conditions according to their position inside the building’s section: from an introverted quality in the ground levels, which are excavated and surrounded by water and greenery, through the middle levels, which house the sleeping quarters close to the surrounding trees, to the top floor’s roof garden, which offers views towards Madrid’s financial district.

As a consequence of the neighbourhood’s architectural environmental restrictions, the project is proposed as a conscious reflection upon the notion of character, resulting in an interpretation of a vein of local classical Modernism that includes nearby mid-XXth century examples from architects like Rafael Bergamín, Luis Gutiérrez Soto, Miguel Oriol, and José María Toledo. All of whom were able to cement a mild and sensible architectural tone compatible with the aspirations of freedom and iconoclasm historically attached to the inhabitants of this historic district, which still remains a much-sought green lung inside the city.

Facades are made up of two types of natural limestone, with rainscreen cladding over wood fibre insulation panels. This, together with geothermal systems for heating & cooling, extensive planting, and the building’s simple form factor, adds up to an optimal energetic performance in an architecture that seeks the pairing of certain atavistic qualities like symmetry, mass and scale, with the promise of an urban contemporary lifestyle.

CREDITS

Project: Urban Villa Madrid

Status: Competition – First Prize (2022). Built (2025)

Client: Private

Location: Colonia Residencia. Madrid

Team: Jacobo García-Germán, Marta Roldán, Raquel Díaz de la Campa, Miguel López, Paloma Mayor, María Valdés, María Romero, María Fernández

Consultants: Jaime Matesanz (quantity surveyor), Fernando G. Serrano (structures)

Builder: Construye Capital

Photographs: Imagen Subliminal (Miguel de Guzmán + Rocío Romero)

Landscaping: ATP Paisaje / Yerba Jardinería