Casa Elvira: if it must exist, let it be worth it

“We already have way too many things. If we must do something new, at least it better be worth it.”

Guillermo Trapiello starts from a fairly simple idea: there are already too many things. If we are going to make a new one, it had better have a good reason for existing.

It is a way of understanding design that applies to his objects, to his installations, and also to his own home.

Casa Elvira was an abandoned 60-square-meter apartment in Madrid, divided into small rooms. Guillermo and Ana Cubas decided to transform it into a space to live, work, and continue experimenting with their ideas.

It was not just about gaining space, but about finding new functions for elements that normally only serve one.

Kitchen on the inside, living room on the outside
One of the most interesting decisions in the project lies in the relationship between the kitchen and the living room.
Instead of treating them as two completely separate spaces, Guillermo designed a kitchen that changes depending on the side from which it is viewed.
On the inside are the elements needed for cooking. Facing the living room is a bookcase incorporating cookbooks and wine books.
The furniture thus serves two different functions without the need to be duplicated.
The island establishes a boundary between the two areas, but allows them to remain connected. From the kitchen, you can see what is happening in the living room; from the living room, the kitchen becomes part of the room's furnishings.
In a 60-square-meter apartment, this relationship makes better use of a limited area without turning the entire space into a single, undifferentiated room.
The kitchen is still a kitchen. But from the other side, it is also part of the living room.

A window where there could not be one

There is another intervention that clearly illustrates Guillermo's way of working.

On a wall where it was impossible to open a real window, he decided to paint one.

The trompe l'oeil, inspired by Palladio, introduces an architectural reference where a physical opening could not exist.

It does not provide light or ventilation, but it does change the way you look at that wall. What was once a closed surface now incorporates a representation of depth.

It is a solution that does not try to hide its own limitations. On the contrary, it uses them to introduce something unexpected.

At Casa Elvira, not all problems are solved by adding square footage, knocking down partitions, or incorporating new elements. Sometimes it is enough to change the way you interpret what already exists.

A material that does not hide how it is made

For the kitchen, Guillermo chose SABLE LAMINATE.

The choice has a lot to do with his understanding of materials and objects.

The construction combines a phenolic birch plywood substrate with a laminated finish. An industrial solution that does not need to resort to more expensive materials to achieve a precise result.

Guillermo finds value precisely in that construction simplicity: using accessible materials and carefully working their joints, proportions, and details.

It is what he describes as turning necessity into virtue.

Instead of viewing material limitations as something to be concealed, he incorporates them into the design process.

This is also his second CUBRO kitchen. An opportunity to review previous decisions and continue refining a solution he had already worked with.

Because for Guillermo, repeating an idea does not necessarily mean doing the same thing.

It can also be a way to improve it.

A house that is also a testing ground

Although the layout has changed, the floor still retains some traces of its previous organization.

The old partitions are still drawn on the floor, revealing where the rooms that no longer exist used to be.

It is a small detail, but a particularly meaningful one in a home where almost everything has been reconsidered.

Objects are also part of that process. Some change locations; others are prototypes that Guillermo tests in his own home before deciding how they should work.

Casa Elvira is, in his words, a testing ground.

A place where ideas do not end when they are manufactured, but when they begin to be used. And where living with an object allows you to discover things that do not always emerge during its design.

Perhaps that is why the old partitions are still there, even though the rooms have disappeared.

The house retains the marks of what it once was while continuing to test what it can become.