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Architects: MAIO
- Year: 2011
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Photographs:José Hevia
Text description provided by the architects. The project, designed by architects Anna Puigjaner and Guillermo Lopez, members of MAIO design team, involves the conversion of a space that formerly housed a washing place into an open studio for professionals from different fields of architecture and design.
The existing 40-meter long building was a continuous space, with variable sections and extremely poor lighting. Hence, the proposal focuses on the opening of a patio, literally conceived as an outer room, to improve the interior lighting. This outer room divides the 40 meters of the initial space into two areas. The front area is open to the street and left empty to accommodate activities related to the public, such as meetings, events, exhibitions ... - while the rear side houses a 12,5-meter long table and is intended as the main workspace.
The thickness and warmth of the three new, large windows opened in the patio has been carefully undertaken, making it a place to stay that allows enjoying the outer space while simultaneously turning intermediate thresholds into habitable spaces.
The rest of the space is respected without being substantially modified. It has only changed by means of white paint, thereby minimally affecting a place which is still present in the popular memory of both the neighborhood and its inhabitants.
