Domingo quickly came up with a plan: Add a second floor that would keep the façade in place and prevent the roof from falling in, while addressing the problems created by the earlier project. In the process, they would also create a loft space that would increase the total living area. This would be done by adding a series of new trusses. They would be light enough not to overload the existing design, yet strong enough to fulfill their necessary structural function.
“Together with our structural engineer, Manuel Ocaña, we came up with a solution that met all of our requirements: a very lightweight tubular series of trusses, whose strength was based on using many anchor points. By dispersing them across the entire surface—what we call ‘atomizing’ them—we avoided concentrating weight at any single point and, at the same time, this helped to ‘stiffen’ the roof,” Domingo recalls. “It gave us lightweight and effective trusses that not only shored up the structure but also gave us enough extra room so that one or two people can comfortably use a new small loft space to rest or relax.”
The result is a 194-square-foot addition. “The upper area is visually separate, but it remains connected to the lower floor,” the studio explains. In fact, the entire home is one interconnected space (except for the bathroom) making it feel larger than it is, at less than 540 square feet.
In this unique space, different colors and materials play key roles in creating separate zones. “As I started working on the structural design, there was one word that popped into my head that then shaped everything else: weightlessness. I don’t know why, but there was something about the way the structure held together, or rather, they way it wasn’t held in place—that reminded me of a kite soaring gently in the sky. From that image, the colors, textures, and the materials that ended up shaping the project began to appear,” Domingo explains.