Hacking a ’60s apartment through pink

In Bilbao, Azab's architectural firm has designed a low-cost renovation project updating a late 1960s apartment through an agile and light upgrade that harmonizes pre-existing elements and furnishings with breakthrough colors and materials.

The intervention, which does not affect the plan with the exception of the demolition of some partitions resulting from renovations after construction, looks on the surfaces as the central pivot of research. In the kitchen, floors are replaced by a a white-base herringbone ceramic coating which welcomes the insertion of red, yellow and green tiles as if animated by the shaded gradient of a carpet. On the walls, new storage units in laminate envelop the room and impose the wooden frame as a recurring element.

The use of laminate finds an echo in the corridor with the new wall cupboards, while the choice of a carpet with polygonal patterns gives a new protagonism to the floor up to the dining room, where a sliding wall in red plywood laminate helps to magnet the gaze with renewed intensity. Replacing a more predictable white or egg white paint, a pale pink hue envelops the succession of walls between the various rooms, redeeming the dark tones of pre-existing finishes with a note of unexpected positivity.