“In northern Europe, new promotions are already being built taking this into account, and Spain will arrive”
More than 80,000 couples separated in Spain in 2020, the latest record from the National Institute of Statistics. Apart from the emotional impact, the economic one. «A divorce is a crack for the pocket of the whole family because if there are children you have to go on to maintain two homes»… Or not? It is the proposal of the architect Javier Ruiz Barbarin, who is already working on several remodeling projects to enable two independent spaces for the former and a third space for minors in the same house. «In Norway, Holland or Sweden there are already developers who build new apartments with three different units: a small apartment with a kitchen, living room, bathroom and room for one of the spouses, another the same for the other and a common space with a bathroom and as many rooms as children there are In Spain it is still incipient, but it will come.
How many meters are we talking about? Because here we live in 80 or 90 meters… «The ideal is 150 meters or more. There are old flats that are large and have two access doors, because in the past there was one for the service. In these cases, reform is easier. A single-family house with a new access from the street is also better if it doesn’t have one, or a duplex.”
The idea, says the architect, is to make “a tailored suit” so that the exes maintain a separate life from the other but the children do not accuse that distance. «Each one must access the common room of the children through their own door and better if they have digital keys or double doors that work as a system of locks that close so that independence is total. When doing work, it is essential to increase the isolation so that you do not listen to your ex and that you do not see him through the window either. If possible, independent electricity and water meters must be installed”, suggests Ruiz Barbarin.
The architect is already working on almost a dozen projects of this type and has just completed a reform like this in Madrid, a 138-meter flat in which a couple with three children who have separated lived. “As the flat had a second entrance, it was easy. In the part of the house where the mother has stayed, we divided the living room to get a bedroom and in the father’s part the same was done, but to fit out a kitchen. It was an old flat with many small rooms and with an investment of just over 30,000 euros, the house could be divided into three rooms.”
One and a half meter kitchens
– It does not seem easy to put two kitchens, two living rooms, three bathrooms and bedrooms for each member of the family in one apartment.
– The key is to make smaller rooms and unify living room, kitchen and dining room in a single space. And if one of the former does not cook much, for example, a one and a half meter wide kitchen-cupboard can be placed in his part, which is also closed with doors, so that the kitchen ‘disappears’ to be integrated into the living room when not cooking. To make smaller bathrooms, the bidet and the bathtub are dispensed with, sliding doors that take up less space are put in… », the architect lists solutions.
Paloma Abad Tejerina, president of the Madrid Association of Family and Children Lawyers, works closely with him on these reform projects, applauding this ‘fashion’ that comes from the north. «It doesn’t mean that you get married thinking about getting divorced but that of ‘with you, bread and onions’, either. In the case of the children, they are located because they do not change their physical space and they save on transfers, packing up every week… If the father, for example, gets sick when he has to be with them, there is not so much problem because the mother it’s next door. And the same if you have to run to the hospital with one of the children, what do you do with the brother, take him too? Well, no, he stays with his mother ».
The lawyer deals daily with families in the process of separation who are presented, among others, with this problem of the apartment. «That the exes live in the same house in separate rooms is a novelty and when I tell them, everyone is surprised. ‘But is that possible, that exists?’, they ask me, because it saves them the trouble of having to maintain a terribly expensive home alone». Not only does it exist, but there is already a 2012 ruling from the Supreme Court that authorizes the division of a house in Madrid, as requested by her husband, who wanted to continue living in the same place as her children. “Of course there are also those who want the ex well away…”
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