

This newly renovated home is bursting with orange and grapefruit colors. apartment In the Spanish capital. Designed by collaboration between Gonzalo del Val The following are some examples of how to get started: Toni Gelabert, this compact seventy-square-metre home is modified to accommodate the client’s change of lifestyle through three interventions, hence its name Tres Piezas (three pieces).
The renovation was spawned from the client’s shift in work and lifestyle routine after spending eleven years abroad. She acquired two tiny apartments — originally designed for short tourist stays — which were to be remodelled into a home for a single resident while still being suitable to accommodate guests in between. In addition, the changing attitude toward working from home meant that space was needed in the apartment for this as well. It’s a pretty hard-core brief for such a small space.
The two apartments were united into a single space. The circulation of the floorplate, resembling an elongated handle, determined the final sequence of divvying the space into thirds — one being the living, the kitchen as the central heart and the bedrooms towards the rear.
Gonzalo Del Val and Toni Gelabert designed three elements to create a new transition between the living room, bedroom, and kitchen in a white painted apartment. Through the entrance into the apartment is an orange square tiled frame — half of it floats on the threshold between the bedroom and kitchen, while the other half is grounded with the living room. The entrance is adorned with a generous, light-colored wooden box kitchenette that doubles as a bookcase. A curving wall adjoining the entrance hides the bedroom. As you look up, a bright orange glow is created by the fluorescent lighting, which also compliments the salmon pink table below.



The primary bedroom, despite being semi-opened, is protected by an elevated T-shaped ‘totem’ multi-functional device of a closet, shower and vanity located near the apartment’s toilet. Although it appears to be a standalone device, the sliding doors are located on both the bedroom and the shower end of the intervention for privacy. In the same way as the bright entry piece in kitchen, the storage and wet areas of the bedroom are also tiled with yellow. When viewed from the corridor, this gives the apartment a sunrise-sunset gradient. Contrasting touches of turquoise for the closet door and micro-tiled deep blue are added for the wet area, appropriately reflecting Lavapiés’ colourful facades upon which the apartment is located.
This fun, compact apartment is both functional and modest. It challenges the notion of home partitions. The apartment goes on to show that maximising space is sometimes as simple as being able to adapt and transform. The article
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