Refurbishment in Sants

The proposal seeks to improve the dwelling's initial conditions and highlight its distinctive features. Two main constraints shaped the intervention: an elongated layout that made it difficult to utilize the central area, and the location of the building's drainage stacks, which prevented placing the kitchen and toilet far away from them.

Given these factors, the decision was made to keep the bedrooms on the street-facing side and the living room on the side facing the inner courtyard, while freeing up the gallery space by integrating the kitchen into the living area. The bathroom remains in its original location but is slightly enlarged, creating a "wet zone" block adjacent to the party wall; this frees up the rest of the floor plan for the other rooms.

A new beam spanning from facade to facade was needed to reinforce the existing wooden ones, and it organizes the apartment's new layout. The beam's supports are positioned about 60 cm below it, creating a gap above the partitions that allows natural light from both facades to reach the center of the home and reveals the full length of the original ceramic vault ceiling. To ensure fire safety, the beam is encased in fireproof drywall—giving the appearance of a large structural element resting on two supports—and is finished with a MDF board, with green serving as the unifying color theme throughout the project.

Original hidraulic floor tiles salvaged from various rooms are reinstalled in the center of the apartment like a rug, defining this area as a versatile space that can serve as a dining room, study, or guest room. It benefits from natural light filtering through interior windows positioned above the beam supports. The space's versatility is further enhanced by a movable partition that allows for privacy when needed.