Madrid-based speculative architecture firm HANGHAR presents Studiolo, a room-within-a-room installation with no predetermined purpose, to challenge the conventions attributed to increasingly cramped urban living spaces.
“Housing spaces have become overly commercialized in the last century as real estate has become much more productive,” said Eduardo Mediero, founder and principal of Madrid-based practice HANGHAR. “This has greatly affected not only the way we live, but also the design of our homes.” The office is deliberately only intended to exist for a decade – it will close in 2030 – and has become more speculative during this period of development Committed to work that seeks to undermine market impacts and decommodify residential architecture. This is achieved by proposing different spatial configurations that can accommodate less prescriptive functions.
In designing the form of the recently completed Studiolo project, Mediero and his team re-examined the meaning of “space” as an architectural unit – a unit that has the potential for open, unfettered activation. “Our intention was not to assign a specific use to a space and try to make that use as efficient as possible, but rather to create a spatial structure that does not convey the use or program assigned to it,” explains Mediero . “We were interested in how inefficient environments can open up a variety of uses.” He was inspired by the Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina, particularly his paintings Saint Jerome in his study (1475), HANGHAR introduced a deep green, cabinet-like space in Mediero's own apartment in central Madrid. This space acts as its own “little studio,” a direct translation of the Italian word from which the project is named.
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