Patch apartment | Nan arquitectos

Patch apartment.

We started this project with an important aspect to take into account, since we wanted to have an open space with unique functions such as having a large versatile work studio where the owner could carry out her professional activity. We understood that this aspect was important and we tried to integrate this space within a housing complex with a very heterogeneous image but very marked and with a lot of personality.

The house consists of 3 bedrooms, a living/dining/kitchen area, 3 bathrooms and a work studio.

The idea is that in any room of the house we have a common aesthetic to the whole, using the same palette of materials in all rooms. For this, we use the existing pavement combined with new elements and a classic air is incorporated to the whole set by staining the wood in a dark color and providing notes of color in the furniture with pastel yellow, sky blue, maroon and English green for the doors of all rooms, being a range widely used in the work of the owner and recalling great works of Le Corbusier or Robert Mallet-Stevens.

The work study area becomes the protagonist space within the whole project. Formally this translates into a large bookcase that forms a block that joins with the kitchen and tables with wheels that can be configured in different ways in order to be versatile giving multiple work situations both collaborative and individual.

We understood that the pre-existence with which we found was very interesting architecturally, as it was a building from the 60s, classic and with a metal structure that is rarely found. For this reason we tried to be very conservative and respectful with the scheme and the materials we found and we tried to introduce elements that dialogued in a fluid way with the existing.

The distribution of the apartment was completely new, so we encountered the problem of “gaps” where the partitions of the previous distribution were located and surfaces that we had to readapt to hide facilities, something that we tried to turn into a virtue within the whole. For this purpose, we thought of placing a material that would serve as a common thread to the whole intervention. It seemed appropriate to place a 10x10 black ceramic tile that contrasts sharply with respect to the wood and red terrazzo that we found in the pavements so typical of the construction of these years. This 10x10 material is used as a “patch” which gives a clear and sincere reading to the whole of the intervention that has been carried out. In the vertical walls we play with a 10x10 ceramic plinth, in order to give continuity to the floor combined with wood of the same shade as the pavements, where we hide indirect lighting, warm, with the idea of being able to generate more relaxed atmospheres when it is intended. Therefore the lighting is also an aspect to highlight within the project, marking those architectural elements that we consider more interesting (paneling, shelves, ...) and generating different environments depending on the amount and type of lighting that we operate, the time of day in which we live and the activity to be performed.