Apartment renovation in Eixample of Barcelona / Forma

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Text description provided by the architects. The project presents the renovation of an apartment located in the ‘Eixample’, Barcelona. The building dating from 1930, has a surface of 70 sq2 with a main façade facing ‘Provença’ street and a service yard. At first, the apartment had the typical distribution of the old dwellings in Barcelona, many subdivided rooms and different layers of materials that had overlaid over the years. Regarding the limited budget available, we decided to maintain the location of the kitchen and bathroom, renewing them completely and therefore use more resources in the rest of the apartment.

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Defoliation

Before our intervention, the apartment had a decayed image and very dark due to the excessive division of the spaces. The main action taken was a selective ‘defoliation’ of all the layers to reach the traditional building elements as: tiled floors, vaulted ceilings and original wood joinery. The unique colors and drawings of the tiled pavement is an important element we wanted to highlight, we maintained the highest number of pieces discarding only the ones that were in very poor conditions. To improve natural light and give homogeneity to the project we painted the whole apartment in white enhancing thus, the tiled floor and its colors. The new materials included, though clearly contemporary, discuss harmoniously with the old to maintain the perception of unity.

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The Table as Architecture

We simplified the distribution to obtain larger and brighter spaces. The most important part is the dining room, the heart of the apartment where there is a table of 3.10 meters long and a bench of 5.20 meters along the wall, which functions as seating, shelf, storage space, etc. This unique table in the apartment located between the living room, master bedroom and kitchen gathers all the activities of the apartment, acting as a study table, dining table, place connected with certain tasks in the kitchen, etc.

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Scattering the Limit

We designed interior boundaries to create different spaces with large openings placed to diffuse the sense of confinement. Based on a sliding door system, we can transform the space to provide the necessary privacy, greater intimacy or, expand the space. The doors, which slide visible, create a dynamic composition of the limits. By replacing the opaque wall for glass at the top of the partition, we get a greater sense of spaciousness without diminishing the privacy and improving the natural lighting of the rooms.

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