Apartment Refurbishment in la Ribera, Barcelona

The project involves the full renovation of a dwelling in Barcelona’s La Ribera district. Located inside a 100-year-old building, the apartment had never undergone any substantial modification. It had been kept in quite good condition having preserved still intact the original mosaic floors and decorative ceiling mouldings. Nevertheless it required a full renovation to fulfill the new users’ needs.

The owners, a couple with two children, were attracted by the dwelling’s atmosphere with its exceptional illumination by the two patios. They commissioned us to renovate the 105-square-metre apartment, with a brief to create an open plan-living area with a semi-open kitchen while make room for three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

The design is based on the idea to maintain the existing qualities of the property and adapt the new room layout into the original plan, by concentrating any necessary changes on the spaces that did not offer such characteristics.

Almost all colourful tiled floors and ceiling mouldings were kept intact and still line up with the walls. However three partition walls were ripped out to create a semi-open kitchen, two bathrooms and a bigger bedroom. The removed tiles were retained and relocated in the new designed spaces, while microcement floor covers the kitchen’s floor and frames the tiled areas to unify the interior by creating “carpets” of original encaustic floor tiles.

The removed original wood joinery has also been kept and relocated according to the new layout to preserve the apartment’s unique atmosphere.

The walls are painted white throughout to improve natural light and give homogeneity to the project, enhancing the tiled floor and its colours.