La Maruca de López de Hoyos

If in other times the Spanish capital had a beach, on the banks of the Manzanares, ten minutes by bus from the centre, today La Maruca's new restaurant delineates a nautical club in the heart of Madrid, paying homage to the great rationalist jewels of Santander's architecture, such as the «Isla de Torre» Sailing School or its Royal Maritime Club. 
Through a process of abstraction, the project by Spanish studio Zooco plays with outdoor-indoor dualism, generating exteriors within interiors and recreating open, nautical environments in which the sea can be felt but not seen. Thanks to the use of strips, the interior volumetry is shaped, expressed through multiple facades, curved and friendly, which invite the visitor to walk and observe, as in a kind of pilgrimage through the landscape with traditional images of the Cantabrian city. 
The materiality of the project is closely linked to its maritime character: nautical teak wood with black polymer-based joints, used on ship decks, as flooring in the project's passage areas; micro tiles with minerals in earthy colours for the floors of the dining rooms; polished white cement as a finishing touch to all the volumes that make up the interior building; teak wood slats for the vertical elements; and, finally, smooth white ceilings with a very high degree of sound absorption. 

The materiality of the project is closely linked to the maritime character 

Highlights include the interior treatment of the slats and volumes that make up the building. The beauty of the ceramics and their vertical placement allow them to adapt perfectly to the existing textures. Thanks to a careful study of the horizontal lines of the project, a clear order is established that enhances the harmonisation and understanding of the space. 
Another characteristic element of the project is the bathrooms, elevated in a structure that goes beyond the limits of the premises and opens onto the outdoor terrace, like a pier, an element that gives character to this outdoor space. The bathrooms - or cabins - are designed using just two elements: teak wood slats and a pedestal of semi-circular ceramic pieces of the same width as the slats. 
The shell of the restaurant is 360º. Like a transparent box, the glass perimeter increases permeability and promotes observation of the internal volumes from the external environment. An integral system of wooden sliding doors can vary the degrees of privacy and solar protection of the interior.
Nothing is hidden. The kitchen is open, exposed. It is located in the centre of the interior building. Like a ship’s engine room, it is offered in its entirety, in an exercise of trust in the team and transparency towards the guest. Stainless steel, reliable and unchanging, is the absolute protagonist.