Brick House in Madrid by Tuñón and Albornoz Arquitectos

DATE

03.09.2025

The Brick House in Madrid, designed by renowned architect and MArch lecturer Emilio Tuñón together with his partner Carlos Albornoz, stands on a plot bordered by tall pines and close to Monte del Pardo.

The design stems from the intention to integrate with its surroundings, respecting both the existing vegetation and the site’s topography. The building is composed of three independent volumes —the cubic house, a covered parking area with a viewpoint, and a pergola-shaded pavilion— which structure the exterior into four distinct bands, creating paths and views that connect the interior with the landscape.

The main cubic volume organizes the program across three levels: bedrooms on the first floor, communal areas on the ground floor, and service spaces in a semi-basement surrounded by a spacious sunken courtyard. The interior is structured through a central cross-shaped layout that ensures fluid circulation, while each face of the cube features three large windows providing abundant natural light and visual connection with the outdoors.

Materiality plays a key role, with handcrafted sand-colored brick joined with lime mortar and topped with granite, giving the exterior a warm, homogeneous tonal character against the rich presence of vegetation. Inside, whitewashed walls combine with oak paneling, while continuous cement and local sand flooring create a neutral, welcoming atmosphere. This palette provides visual continuity between spaces, reinforcing the project’s sense of timelessness and tactility.

The Brick House exemplifies Tuñón and Albornoz’s current phase, where they approach smaller residential commissions with the same geometric, constructive, and contextual rigor demonstrated in larger works. It shows how a modest-scale project can engage with the landscape, the tradition of material, and the demands of contemporary living, resulting in an exercise in architecture that is sensitive, modest, yet profoundly strategic.