Font 6 Apartment
Barcelona, Spain
2018
CATEGORY
RESIDENTIAL / COMPLETE RENOVATION
TEAM
COLOMBO AND SERBOLI ARCHITECTURE
SURFACE
84m2
STATUS
COMPLETED
PHOTOGRAPHY
The apartment is located in a quiet and green passageway beside the Sagrada Familia, in an old modernist building in the Eixample district.
Despite the original layout, full of partitions and small room, the brief revolved around the main idea of turning the house into a wunderkammer, a quiet retreat full of emotionally charged objects, with at least one guest room beside the main one.
The challenge has been translated into the will to maintain the period elements that could be saved, without renouncing to a flat with a distinct contemporary character and as clear and diaphanous as possible.
The simple idea was to empty the apartment and insert a lacquered, wooden-clad, groove-panelled blue box in the middle of the floor plan, modulating and redefining the spaces around it in a more architectonic way.
The box contains a bathroom, designed more as a relaxing and intimate area, as a Sancta Sanctorum of the entire apartment, and its entrance has been hidden and camouflaged between the doors of the closets constituting the entire external facade of the box. The box inner skin is a very warm shade of pink micro-cement, meant to contrast with its cold exterior tones.
From the outside of its concealed doors, this warm coating can be slightly glimpsed and deduced only from the living room through a circular funnelled-glass window, placed above the kitchen counter (another element that generates both privacy and curiosity). A bespoke sink cabinet, a custom-built, curved-shaped, angular mirror and a globe lamp complete the special relax room.
The blue box external surface is defined by various functions that mark the spaces on its sides: acting as 4-season cabinets on the main bedroom side, a wardrobe on the corridor, finally becoming kitchen cupboards towards the living room.
The box separates the living area from the night zone, while a semi-arc carves the blue volume generating a lighter blue corridor as an ample, curved ceiling hall that connects visually both areas...
The airy and diaphanous living and kitchen space now benefit from the light of a new big French window that opens on the newly opened terrace, populated by plants.
“My wish was to have a flat that would be a Wunderkammer, an intimate space where a series of objects could find their own place in a dynamic way in my day-to-day life.”
— Andrea Serboli
In terms of materials, the entire apartment is treated spartanly and as a single container, with very neutral elements and colors: an ivory-colored, continuous micro-cement has been used. All the false ceilings have been removed; Catalan vaults have been recovered and painted warm white. The neutrality of the described elements creates a container aimed to make the lacquered blue box stand out.
Punctual elements of more precious materials are mixed with more basic elements and combined to generate a feeling of affordable luxury, not ostentatious but to be searched in everyday details. It is the philosophy behind the use of brass in small elements such as the top of the micro-cement skirting boards or the thresholds where floors change; or the choice of Portobello marble as the kitchen countertop, backsplash and on the curved island and all the bespoke furniture pieces, lacquered and handle-less.
The idea for the furnishing reflects the same philosophy, mixing luxury furniture with vintage pieces: neutral colors, objects collected in travels and paintings with a strong personal emotional character.
