Unplanned Domestic Prototype
Location: San Sebastián, Spain
Year: 2024
Architects: Ismael Medina Manzano
Photography by: Hiperfocal
Unplanned Domestic Prototype emerges as a critical experimentation within an 80 m² apartment located in a building constructed in 1966, a product of Spain’s 1959 Stabilization Plan. This plan, aimed at the country's economic recovery, promoted the development of minimal, standardized, and compartmentalized housing to create more "efficient" living spaces. In this context, the apartment was designed under the rigid principles of the nuclear family model of the time, characterized by closed spaces, rigid structures, and limited rooms.
In response to this legacy, the Unplanned Domestic Prototype re-evaluates the need to adapt to new forms of cohabitation emerging in the 21st century. Instead of perpetuating the original standardization, the space becomes a platform for diverse activities and domestic agents. It proposes a home that multiplies and integrates the architectural possibilities into other ecosystems, celebrating the diversity of social relationships and local ways of life while advocating for flexible and plural coexistence for both present and future inhabitants.
A central intervention in the project is the curved ceramic wall, an architectural element designed to break the rigidity of the original layout. Beyond its aesthetic value, this wall acts as a spatial organizer and social catalyst, redefining the logistical conventions of domestic storage. In addition to its functional aspects, the wall serves as a material statement resonating with local environments and traditions. Around and through the wall, a series of strategically integrated pantries, cabinets, kitchen furniture, bathrooms, shelves, and closets maximize its utility. At one vertex, the wall merges with a mirrored showcase that conceals conventional appliances. Simultaneously, a sandstone portal from San Sebastián—the most commonly used stone in the region—segments the wall, revealing the geological layers of the surrounding landscape and local quarrying methods.
The space is further complemented by a series of mobile devices. A height-adjustable island, crafted from repurposed national granite and discarded structures from local carpentry workshops, moves within the space, increasing adaptability to various contexts and social assemblies that foster interaction. Additionally, the use of local materials—such as reused tree roots for a stool, aluminum and steel carpentry systems from the nearby metallurgical industry, recycled aluminum tube chairs from a local restaurant, and mobile interior vegetation sustained by an internal irrigation system—strengthens the connection to the environment and the understanding of the productive landscape that extends beyond the prototype’s boundaries.
This prototype aims to experiment with solutions to contemporary housing renovation challenges. It provides a framework to question and interpret how we inhabit spaces today. Rather than offering a definitive answer, it seeks to provoke critical reflection on how architecture can create environments that embrace diversity and remain open to continuous redefinition. Text description by the architects.
