The Refurbishment of an old dry-cleaners in the Gracia district of Barcelona into a house for a young family represented “a fantastic opportunity” for Carles Enrich Giménez “to rethink the use of an unused space and to optimize the conditions.”
The project proposes a housing system in an open space towards the patio, where the bathroom is the only closed element. All the activities take place in a single space that has visual contact with the patio. For this purpose, all the partitions that characterized the small closed rooms with no natural light or ventilation have been removed and the external openings have been widened.
Original materials, ceramic roofing and wooden beams were recovered. The flooring is partly made of concrete and partly continuous coloured pine parquet.
The lower excavation allows the incorporation of a loft created with IPE beams and 3 cm wood board that becomes a separate, but open bedroom. This “small loft” is intended more as a “piece of suspended furniture” than as a room. A furniture-closet, usable on both sides, the only separation between the different spaces that converts the corridor into a dressing corridor.
The designer also uses an old storeroom at the back of the courtyard to create a study that operates independent of the main space. The patio thus becomes an intermediate space which can be used as outdoor room most of the year.
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