How many times have our grandmothers reminded us that, back in the village, every evening people would bring their chairs out into the street and gather with their neighbours to enjoy the cool of the evening — a la fresca.

A return to origins, to repose, to a quieter life. To dwelling rather than passing through, to conversations without a schedule and spontaneous greetings. The quiet life — slow life — so sought after today.

That was the project's central challenge: to give the premises a façade that would make passers-by turn their heads and stop. The façade as the project itself.

Taking as a reference the Japanese intermediate space known as engawa, we could not pass up the opportunity to work on that threshold between public and private — and to do so by generating public space. Private space placed at the service of the public. A place to pause and sit down to do nothing at all.

Following this strategy, we designed a Portuguese-style tiled façade entirely clad in 10 x 10 cobalt blue tiles, producing shifting reflections out towards the street, together with large windows that invite a connection between inside and outside.

Set between large residential blocks, the only link to the outside world is through this façade: the rest of the premises is entirely blind. Once past this public/private threshold, the space extends perpendicularly, losing all connection with the exterior.

Inside, the premises consist of a single open space rounded off by a small kitchenette, a bathroom and a storage room. Nothing but white walls — a canvas ready to be worked on.

Alongside white, the blue and orange of Bic — the pen brand used by painter Juan Francisco Casas — appear throughout the remaining uses. White for drawing; blue and orange for organising.