This home, whose classic parameters are typical of Barcelona’s Eixample district, had been modified several times in different periods, the result of spatial rearrangements performed by the previous owners. The idea of our clients was to carry out one last spatial reorganisation that would consolidate the home and adapt it to their private and social life, as well as harness the vast amount of light that filtered in through the façades and interior courtyards.
The home’s refurbishment, technically complex yet simple in its final result, provides a balance between the private and social use of the resulting spaces. In line with the owners’ lifestyle, the home is flexible in its boundaries and adapts to the wide range of situations to which it may play host, without losing that sense of unity and comfort courtesy of the materials.
With a view to simplifying and unifying spaces, we designed a project aimed at blurring boundaries, organising the entrances and, most importantly, enhancing the spatial and visual connections which had been left unattended in the home’s original form.
The proposed layout organises the spaces in a seemingly conventional manner, grouping all private areas in the innermost part of the house and the social areas at the other end. It is in the intermediate area where the floor plan blurs the boundaries, affording the home flexibility. Here we installed a hallway and dressing area which act as a pivot, connecting the various bedrooms and bathrooms and serving as a spatial filter between the common and private areas. Depending on the level of privacy required, the sliding doors in these intermediate spaces serve to create either fully or partially independent areas.
The structural intervention, broad in scope yet discrete in its end result, helps unify a large common area which includes the living room, dining room and an open-plan kitchen. While part of one unit, these spaces are subtlety delimited by the structural framing. In the centremost area, the structural walls were modified to reorganise the connections between the dressing area and the bathrooms, providing a sense of order and new lines of vision. Lastly, efforts were made to recover the original open gallery at the back of the home, offering the owners an exterior space that is accessible from the main bedrooms.
The choice of materials was applied throughout the home, in accordance with the criteria of continuity, comfort and amazement. It may be summarised as follows: oak in the kitchen, accentuating its distinctive nature in a vast space; microcement for all the floors and the walls in the wet areas, providing a sense of continuity; mirror cladding on the sliding doors to enhance the light and blur the boundaries; and, lastly, Calacatta Viola marble, which is used sparingly in the bathrooms and showcased in all its glory in the kitchen. The design of the bathroom furniture brings that wow factor, as it resembles marble to the naked eye, yet manifests the true power and colouring of the material when the doors or drawers are open.
