FULL RENOVATION OF A FLAT IN EIXAMPLE

It is a 90 m2 apartment built in 1925, seeking to be very respectful of the context and thus maintain the identity of a classic Eixample apartment and its characteristic construction elements of the time, typical of many of the properties in the traditional Barcelona neighborhood. We are talking about a house with high ceilings, with spaces that look like boxes connected to each other, something very typical of modernist buildings from the beginning of the 20th century. These boxes come from the traditional system of load-bearing walls and wooden beam ceilings and a Catalan ceramic vault.

As a concept, we choose to reintegrate rather than replace. Inspired by pre-existences that also guide the process, where materials such as wood, lime and natural pigments star. A strategy of restoration and reintegration of original textures that extends to all the rooms of the house, as a common thread, thus providing coherence and communication to the different interior spaces.

The entrance is through a hallway in which all the original textures of the party brick are recovered, which are complemented on the other side with a lime and plaster work. This hallway acts as a distributor for the different rooms of the house that are accessed through solid pine wood doors that have been restored.

The most important change comes from moving and relocating the kitchen, originally located in a dark and interior area, leaving it open to the large interior patio with an island facing south, enjoying cross ventilation and natural light throughout the day.

The master bedroom remains in its original location. However, an intervention is made by making a circular opening in the load-bearing wall that divides the bedroom and living room/kitchen. Using only manual ceramic brick, as a natural discharge arch, without the need to use supports using beams. In this way, not only is the space provided with natural light but it is also related to the different areas of the house, giving a greater feeling of spaciousness and connecting the interior with the exterior.

With the same purpose of maintaining the essence of the neighborhood, the roofs have been rehabilitated, preserving their original structure of ceramic vault and wooden beams that were reinforced with metal profiles and an anti-fungal treatment. At the same time, all the old doors were restored, stripping them and recovering the wood. The same with the windows, replacing the simple glass with chamber glass and greater thickness.In the bathrooms, a lime plaster covers all the walls and the sinks are made of Carrara marble.

We work with the construction materials themselves, leaving them visible, as was done in the past. On the one hand, the walls are stripped, exhibiting the manual brick texture of the load-bearing walls, which on the other hand, are complemented by the coatings on the partitions through the combination of several ancestral techniques, and thus maintain and recover the aura of architectural honesty.

Materials already present. Ecological and indigenous, with a very low carbon footprint.Using traditional techniques such as potassium silicates, lime plasters, trabadillos, wax glazes, lime paint, without acrylic base and natural oils, open pore, which maintain the essence of the materials and take advantage of their hygroscopic properties, natural insulation. cork-based, etc. All of this contributes to accentuating the feeling of domesticity and comfort that is constantly sought.

Rebuilding, craftsmanship, comfort and domesticity are values ​​that have sought to be captured in this intervention, describing a set of perceived emotions and not just an isolated attribute. Domesticity and its relationship to family, intimacy and a dedication to the home, as well as a sense that the house incorporates those feelings.