Interpreting the Sky: Madrid Apartment by Martin Pelaez.

Like a refuge in the sky, this apartment design by Martin Pelaez is a welcome reprieve from the hustle and bustle of Madrid‘s popular Plaza Mayor square below. With five windows that frame the sky, the architect took inspiration from the changing colours and shapes outside—from sunset to sunrise.

The project was also informed by the client. Cheerful and friendly, they were looking for a ‘happy place’ that was colourful, had a sense of place and with a career in big tech integrated technology throughout the apartment.

“And with those ingredients, we worked: colour, geometry, sense of place and technology,” Martin explains. Typical constructive elements such as the original timber pillars and beams are kept, endowing the interior with a history that dates back to 1882.

With a neutral backdrop of grey floors and white walls, Martin and his studio inject colour through furniture and storage pieces and some surfaces, with the colours ranging from blue and iridescent to the orange and lilac tones of a sunset. Sky blue—typical of Madrid on a good day—is layered onto the main cabinets and kitchen finishes while the bathroom is flooded with a dusky orange hue that spills the colour outside like a glow.

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Curved lines (inspired by the shapes of clouds) appear in the geometry of the main table, embracing the timber pillar while it seems to float. Custom designed for this project, they are fabricated with plywood board and transparent methacrylate tubular legs to achieve a floating effect—“the sun could not be missed in this “sky”, for it has introduced iridescent methacrylate panels, of our own design, recreating its geometry and the shades of colour it produces,” Martin explains.

The apartment’s home facility systems were fully integrated with a Google Home for the client, managed from his mobile phone where he can check the weather, listen to the news and know the consumption of the home just by asking.

Mirrors are also a fundamental part of the project, applied in large format panels to create new interior ‘windows’ for reflections and new views and also to reinforce the sensation of light and colour, “and thus, we reinterpret [the] materially of the sky in this space in the centre of Madrid,” Martin concludes.

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[Images courtesy of Martin Pelaez. Photography by Alberto Amores.]