The project refurbished an apartment that was originally built in 1910. Despite still featuring many of its original components at the start of the renovation process — original wooden joinery, ceiling rosettes and moulding, and hydraulic ceramic pavement —, most of it was in a severely negligent state. This determined a preservation effort, restoring and conserving as much of the original components as possible, and changing only the spaces that were in severe state of decay.
Thus the architects worked room by room, recessing wardrobes or shifting partitions without modifying the limit of the rooms so that they would gain in functionality without losing their original limits. As much as possible, the original joinery was conserved. The architects converted the long internal corridor into a transit space with storage, with a few simple shelves that stretch the full length of the corridor and with a few low units of the same length.
Given the apartment's generous ceiling height, the en-suite bathroom floor was raised by 60 cm, making room in a single space for the bath underneath the shower as well as a storeroom underneath the floor, accessible from the corridor and next to the kitchen. "This raising of the bathroom also means that in order to access it three steps have to be climbed from the bedroom," state Bach arquitectes, "giving the flat a greater feeling of 'domesticity' by introducing an element that is more typical of a detached family house than of a single-story flat."
Architects:Anna & Eugeni Bach, arquitectes
Completion: 2011
Built area: 130 square metres
Contractor: Petropolis, S.L.
Location: c/ Consell de Cent, 423, Barcelona
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