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Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

Here's another apartment renovation in Barcelona by Spanish studio Arquitectura-G (see their El Born apartment in our earlier story).

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

All rooms are linked by folding doors and sliding wall partitions.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

The kitchen and bathroom occupy the former service corridor.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

See also: Apartment in El Born by Arquitectura-G

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

More apartments on Dezeen »

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

Photographs are by José Hevia.

Here's some text from the architects:


The original condition of the apartment had a linked room layout, with pieces connected to each other by double leaf doors. These pieces were also related to a service corridor which split the circulation into two, connecting more efficiently the kitchen, the utility room, the larder and the guest bathroom.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

The generous passage between pieces let link them programmatically, allowing multiply the dimension of a single room or even reaching an absolute permeability. On the other hand, diverse levels of division and intimacy where possible locking the doors depending on the needs.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

Due to the flexibility of that scheme, we chose to maintain and to improve it.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

It also fitted with the uncertain needs of the clients. The main decision has been creating a central core of specialized pieces -kitchen and bathrooms- which takes over the original circulation spaces.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

We placed the kitchen at the entrance, instead of the original useless hall.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

Thus, we have an encounter point accessible both from the exterior and the contiguous rooms that, furthermore, is a kitchen.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

On the other side, the new bathroom appropriates the original service corridor, increasing its size so we can understand it as a huge interchangeable toilette area where we have two complete bathrooms -which may go with two hypothetical rooms-, and a guest bathroom.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

We insisted on removing the corridor by rotating an existing partition and covering it with a floor to ceiling mirror.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

It provided the coming up of programmatically ambiguous areas, ready to be defined by the inhabitant, and it improved the visual permeability allowing diagonals that break the orthogonality of the plan.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

At the same time, the rotation of this mirror plane blurs the bathroom's inner division while reflecting its images to the adjoining rooms.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

Beyond the size equality of the pieces, the door is the tool which expresses the apartment's versatility.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

There is not any single leaf door. The existing double leaf ones are maintained, combined or relocated while some new typologies are included; sliding one leaf doors, sliding/casement doors, etc.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

It is done in an almost random way, playing with the size of the partition and the door in order to mistake one element for the other, and to emphasize that each room has a close relation to its adjoining ones.

Apartment in Barcelona by Arquitectura-G

See also:

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