The Conversion of Tas’s Renaissance Church into a Home by Its Architects

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The Bilbao-based architecture firm Garmendia Cordero Arquitectos has turned an abandoned Renaissance church in Sopuerta, Spain, into a home. The original layout of the 190-square-meter Tas’s Church space was kept, but it was changed so that it could be used in different ways and included some modern features.

The project was led by lvaro Cordero Iturregui and Carlos Garmendia Fernández, who worked closely with the client to adapt the space to the building’s history. Garmendia Cordero Arquitectos said, “Any change in how a space is used requires a series of activities that adapt the space to the new needs that are presented beyond the implicit ones. This requires its upgrading.””This time, the assignment to change something was both unique and inspiring: turning an abandoned Renaissance church into a home.”

Before the project began, the building had no roof, had fallen apart on the inside, and was in a very bad state of structural instability. At all times, the most important thing was to act in the most careful way possible. The church was only touched when there was no other way, and the action was seen as an outsider element in a ruin.

Because the way a home is thought of has a direct effect on how the people who live there live, this project grew out of a desire to tame an unusual space. This was done with a nod to history but with modern ideas, with the goal of seeing housing as an open space and setting up the home as a place for people to meet, as a way to socialize housing architecture.