Excerpt: SF18 Apartment is an interior design project designed by FFWD Arquitectes in Barcelona, Spain. The project sets two main areas of activity, a lounge and outdoor dining, that provide comfort and extra solar control to the inner housing units.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] The existing interior space was an archetype of a Barcelona’s Eixample flat. Space configuration – based on small rooms concatenation – and its characteristic constructive elements – such as the hydraulic flooring, high ceilings with moldings, old wooden windows and doors, a free height of 350cm, or some singular elements like a wall fireplace – remained intact.
The main goals for the project were the following: To enhance the defining elements of the flat, to preserve the essence of the existing space. We wanted to be be possible to relate the interior space we designed to the kind of building where it is placed. To change the space configuration, to let the light arrive to every room in the flat. Te original configuration had too many dark rooms in the inner part of the building. The configuration proposal for the flat, is developed around a main living space in the furthest part from the street. There, we find the dining area, the living and a reading area related to a large library that accompanies these spaces without walls. The kitchen is visually related to this space through a guillotine window. Parallel to this day zone we find the main room, that includes a dormitory, a dressing room and a bathroom. In contact with the street, two existing rooms were conserved as they were. In them we find a secondary dormitory, and a study room.
In the spaces where were the most quality floorings, they were preserved. In the other spaces, where it was mandatory to put a new pavement, we installed an old oak chevron parquet. In the main bathroom and the kitchen, floor and some walls were covered with tiles from the Azulej series designed by Patricia Urquiola for Mutina. They are porcelain stoneware pieces that review the old hydraulic tiles that we had on the original flat. The height in the flat was conserved, and when necessary, the new ceilings adopted the language of the moldings in the edges and in the central parts. The colour palette chosen for the walls looks for create a cosy and comfortable ambience, with the use of modern and atemporal colours. The furniture used is modern style, belonging to the american 1950s trends, with a touch of nordic design. Contemporary pieces are mixed with chairs designed by the Eames, and some other furniture inherited from the family.
In one block of the Eixample Cerdà split in two by a residential passage the conditions of privacy and sunning of terrace situated on a low level are clearly affected by the high occupancy of the neighborhood. The design of this 30sqm outdoor space arises in order to create a space for relaxation and privacy for its owners at minimal cost and impact on building and defining elements of space. The project sets two main areas of activity, a lounge and outdoor dining, that provide comfort and extra solar control to the inner housing units. All intervention poses with drywall without altering the initial conditions of the finishes and the historic building enclosures -ceramic pavement type roof, metal-framed porch beams with ceramic pieces in between. The space configured from the construction of a structural gantry parallel to the existing porch and that supports a pergola attached to the adjacent building, which partially closes the front of the terrace. This laminated wooden pergola in autoclaved pine define the dining area and the main areas with plants in parallel to the wicker perimeter closing. The porch area is enabled how outdoor lounge. Both spaces are connected with the installation of a Alicante shutters system, hung from the rafters of the porch and the pergola. They cover the space, defining a shadowed enviroment and giving protection from the prying eyes of neighbors. The Alicante pine wood blinds filter the light without completely obstructing the visual relationships with the environment, allowing variable solar control depending on the seasons. They can be unattached from the pergola and get wrapped under the porch.
The gardening design has been solved with independent planters elevated from the roof with ceramic bases, allowing a proper cleaning and water evacuation. Two areas of plantation have been defined in parallel to the perimetral closing. They are frontally closed by a wooden baseboard that hides planters while unifies the layout. In the dinner area, there are low rising plants combined with climbing species that in the future are supposed to cover the pergola creating a fresh vegetable shadow. The wider and sunny area of the space has been solved with aisled planters that have different shapes and materials. They include small trees and bushes that will produce fruits and flowers in different seasons of the year – Magnolia, Gardenia, Strawberry tree and Rubber plant. The gardening project and its execution was made by Esverd Jardineria, a gardeners team specialized on designing and gardening maintenance, and who’s projects are known by the use of a wide variety of plants species obtaining lots of textures, colors and shapes on its works.
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