An abandoned Renaissance church in Sopuerta, Spain was recently converted into a home by the architecture firm Garmendia Cordero Arquitectos, which is located in Bilbao. The area of 190 square meters, which was given the name Tas’s Church, made use of the existing layout of the church and modified it for a flexible layout, with modern touches, while maintaining the remnants of the past inside.
For the purpose of the project, the studio that is being managed by lvaro Cordero Iturregui and Carlos Garmendia Fernández has collaborated closely with the client in order to adapt the space in accordance with the historical presence of the building. “Any change in the use of a space requires a series of actions that adapt such place to the new needs that are presented beyond the implicit ones that entails the updating of it,” said Garmendia Cordero Arquitectos. “Any change in the use of a space requires a series of actions that adapt such place to the new needs that are presented beyond the implicit ones.” “The job of transformation in this particular instance was as compelling as it was exceptional: turning an abandoned Renaissance church into a home.”
At the beginning of the project, the building did not have a roof, it had collapsed within its own interior, and it was in a precarious state of structural instability. At all times, the idea of acting in the most sensitive way possible was prioritized. The church was only touched when there was no other alternative, and the action was viewed as an outsider element that was seeded within a ruin.
This project is the result of a desire to tame an unusual space, to do so with respect to the previous history but with contemporary concepts, to understand housing as an open space and to set up the home as a meeting place, as an opportunity to socialize housing architecture. The way in which a dwelling is conceived is directly related to the way in which its inhabitants live their lives.
