The Sanctuary of the Self | Clap Studio

Clap Studio presents The Sanctuary of the Self, the installation designed for Homapal as part of CasaDecor 2026 in Madrid. The project takes as its starting point one of the most loaded spaces of the contemporary home, the bathroom, and turns it into the stage for a reflection on something that affects us all: the need to expose ourselves on social media, to project an outward image in search of external validation. Around 93 million selfies are taken worldwide every day, and a growing body of psychological research shows that the harm of this practice doesn't lie only in posting the image, but also, and above all, in the moment before: that instant in which we examine ourselves, compare ourselves and correct ourselves in search of an acceptable version of who we are.

The bathroom is the place where the transition happens. The space where we move from being to appearing, where we prepare ourselves before facing the gaze of the world. The space created by Clap is built from Homapal's reflective surfaces, which envelop the visitor from the moment they step inside. As they move forward, the reflections multiply. The image repeats, shifts, distorts. The visitor's own movement feeds the experience “inevitably, the body searches for the right angle, the most flattering reflection, the version of oneself that feels most convincing. It is an everyday gesture, almost automatic. And it is, precisely, what the installation brings into focus” explains Àngela Montagud.

In the middle of that search, the space interrupts. On some of the reflective surfaces, written messages appear: This is also you, This is enough, Still you. A pause. A reminder that those blurred or distorted reflections are not deviations from who we are, but part of it. That identity is not a single image, but the sum of all its versions.

The journey culminates in the bathtub and the two basins that articulate the space. Here the project draws on the myth of Narcissus, in love with an image without depth, and connects it to the present. The water is not still, it moves to the rhythm of a musical composition created specifically for the installation by a musicologist, causing the reflections on its surface to ripple, break and reform continuously.

The Sanctuary of the Self is, at once, a showroom and an experience. Homapal's materials are not the backdrop of the project, they are its skin, the very matter from which the reflection is built. A space that shows how interior design can move beyond the purely aesthetic to become something you feel, walk through and, if it works, something that stops you for a moment.

Credits

Surface: 20 sqm

Completion date: April 2026

Client: Broadview Materials / HOMAPAL @homapal

Design: Clap Studio

@weareclapstudio

Photography: Nacho Uribesalazar

@nachouribesalazar