#refurbishement

This work is about the restyling of a small apartment located at the second floor of a building built during the 50s. The building faces the main square of the small village of Caprino Veronese, not far from Garda Lake. Federico Villa Studio Federico Villa Studio The apartment haven’t been changed since his construction period so we had to face materials annd finish of that age. Our goal was to amphasize this atmosphere by using colour as an architectural element and giving new life to the fifties original finish, nowadays much appreciated by customers. The colours we used were red, yellow, green and light blue: those elements follows one another inside the space following a common path. Federico Villa Studio The entr... More

It was a traditional town house, like so many others on the Maresme coast. It is a row house, with the main facade aligned to the street, dividing walls of mud and stone and a back patio. Despite of this, the house had two remarkable peculiarities. First, it incorporated two typological units on the same property. That is: instead of having a single bay of between 4 and 5 meters, as usual, it had two bays as part of it. Second, the ground level of the back patio of the house was about 3 meters above the ground level of the main access. Both features had great potential but were paradoxically limiting as well. José Hevia José Hevia In the first case because the relationship between the two entities was very poor. In... More

It is a row house built in the early 90s. It is located in Sant Pere de Ribes, a village 50 kilometers south of Barcelona. It was large but dense, as it corresponds to the type of middle-class housing of the time. It was not a dark house, but it was in semi-darkness. To optimize the number of floors, the slabs leave a very tight clear height of just 255cm. There are four floors: one with a parking area (at street level), a ground floor (at the level of a rear public garden), a first floor and an attic. The house is well located, in the upper part of the village.Instead of entering the house from the street level, opening a gate, climbing the flight of exterior stairs leading to the terrace and then crossing an opaque door, the new proposal... More

Total refurbishment of an old house to energy-efficient house When the client asked TOOP architectuur the renovate the grandparents house to a house which is future proof, TOOP knew there would be a lot of sentimal feelings towards this project. Caption The grandmothers' house was a place where the new inhabitants spend a lot of their childhood. TOOP started with totally changing the look of the building and going for a renovation that would bring the garden into the house. Cafeine This was done by using as minimal materials as possible.The new roof structures where made in roof with seamless aluminium windows that connect the interior spaces with the outdoor spaces. Cafeine The material palette of the interior is calm a... More

Finding space for an elegant new staircase unlocked the potential of this run-down Regency Villa in London's Kensington district.   What were the key challenges? Our clients needed light, light and MORE LIGHT! 'THE PIT'. This is what the clients called the shallow yard at the back of the house they had purchased! THE STAIRCASE was taking up valuable floor space and complicating the plan, whilst the small side wing to the building was underused and disfunctional. We therefore needed to achieve planning consent in a Conservation Area to enlarge the side wing and thereby unlock the potential of the house! Caption What were the solutions? LIGHT: A 7m long frameless structural glass skylight was used to flood the stairways with... More