Penthouse in Barcelona

A small apartment above one of the main junctions of the urban structure in the Eixample with northwest orientation. A large terrace in the chamfer with sunset light where the whole house is oriented. The demand for interior refurbishment is that no part of it is foreign to its façade. To this end, the bathroom piece is disseminated in two parts. The boudoir is camouflaged in the part near the open shower and the other, which contains the toilet, is confined to a small niche that can be incorporated into the rest of the house through two sliding planes. It is betrayed in the form of a white box near the bed.

A directionality is implemented in a continent of irregular perimeter completely emptied to signify the resulting space. The technical lighting elements in ceilings support the traces that organize the project. It is decided that the pavement does not respond to any of the above. All content is linked through the positioning of wooden lattices responsible for making something appear that can be called “far” in a small house.

Outside gardening is densified especially in the shower façade in order to generate a kind of strange corner where a shower can be taken outside where the city is veiled by a somekind of remote place layer of something lusher.

Single family house

The volumetric envelope is almost  the first of the premises when confronting preexisting and program requirements. The contradiction between a latent hostility in an apparent idyllic condition of the place is also.

Often in relationships and transits the shortest or easiest distance is not the most appropriate. The direct roads become twisted, the fast roads become slow, which we take for granted it is no longer, the fine becomes thick and the thick becomes the fine.

The strategy is to incorporate some of the preexisting contradiction.

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A grid of large-format pieces wraps around the house. This perimeter wrap is not coincident with the façade holes and the openings find their place changing plane. In the most exposed part of the building is formed a kind of a double-scaled lattice where some pieces are rejected and others are properly filter. Some of these can change their position at the disposal of usability thus activating the modifications of perceptions of volumetry and tectonicity.

In other parts where the wrapping is still compact the initial volume is modified with the appearance of patios.

The back façade houses a shady garden that becomes a projection screen where every morning the leaves of the row of poplars play to be small suns.

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Intervention in an art gallery

Galeria Joan Prats began its activity in 1976 in its emblematic space of Rambla Catalunya 54 in Barcelona.

Years later it incorporates a second exhibition space located a street away, Balmes 54. This space came to complement and provide more versatility the possibilities to show work in terms of typology and format. In 2014 it is adopted as main this new-old space of the street Balmes and this one must be rescheduled.

It was necessary to modify the narrative sequence of the exhibition spaces and to insert a wide area of ​​internal work, normally foreign to them.The section of the building offered the opportunity to introduce zenithal light to the bottom of the gallery where there were some stores organized on two floors. The intervention consists of emptying this large volume and placing two large holes in the ceiling. This substantially modifies the end of the story.

Flat refurbishment

A duplex housing refurbishment on one of the narrow streets in the district of Eixample in Barcelona. The upper floor is basically  a lobby of the big terrace with a multipurpose space  and a small bathroom. The works are focused on the lower floor where the basic functional programme is developping.

The landlord asks for a huge kitchen and we decided to let everything revolve around it. Preparing a “picada” with direct view on Silvia playing the piano or watching the autumn chaging the small urban canopy down the passage.

A huge kitchen asks in turn for a huge pantry and one with several doors is made.

Single house refurbishment

Single family detached house on two floors refurbishment. The intervention focuses on the first floor where the night program is developed. The ground floor is well positioned on the plot but the upper floor does not manage to link the exterior with the layout of its pieces.

A cabinet with gadgeto-doors in the centre of the floor is responsible for making appear or disappear a guest room that normally will function as a dressing room of the main one. The bathrooms have a previous hall connected to the double space of the living room and to Manolo, the gardener.