This project for an interior refurbishment is based in the district of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi. The client had a single premise for the project: The apartment was going to be just for her but it had to be designed as a future family home.
The previous owners had left the property in a relatively good state. They had made, however, several interventions on separate occasions, obtaining a non-cohesive result. Analyzing the floor plan, the architects detected the consequences of not visualizing the entire ensemble as a single unit: irregular distribution, inaccessible nooks, and two different entries to the home, which are not necessary by today’s living standards. The plan was to resolve the mismatched solutions and bring back order and regularity to the space by generating a neutral stage for a long-term life project.
As a first step, the distribution was reorganized by carefully altering the load bearing walls of the building. One of the entrances was eliminated by using a single entrance hall to access the home. Taking advantage of the extra space, a powder room was added. This new entrance hall, along with the kitchen, became the heart of the apartment, serving as a connecting point between all of the spaces, both functionally and visually.
With the kitchen placed in a central position, its visual relationship was recovered with the adjacent spaces, but with the possibility of keeping it isolated from the rest of the rooms. The sliding door and the hung glass window, which integrates itself with the back of the kitchen cabinets, allows one to separate the kitchen space or adapt its use for a breakfast nook or an open bar.
Three interventions were made in the living areas to bring regularity and light to the space. First, an intermediate space was arranged in which to place the pantry, the television, and a storage module, integrating what was once an odd nook in the midst of the space. Two chimney ducts from the apartments below were then integrated by designing modular shelves made of lacquered steel plates using the duct’s width as a reference. Finally, the old terrace was recovered, liberating the space and gaining unobstructed views of the elevated areas of the city.
In the main bedroom, the headboard, which is continuous with the new flooring, maintains a sequence throughout the bedroom, dressing room, and bathroom. At the center of the apartment, the old service bedroom was suppressed to create a laundry room, while the two large bedrooms on the opposite side of the living room were maintained.
Very small changes resulted in an intense reorganization and transformation of spaces. The apartment now adapts to the clients’ current lifestyle yet it can perfectly be adapted for a future family to come.
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