Renovation of a “Loft-not-Loft” in Barcelona by H3O

Barcelona-based design studio H30 has completed ‘Loft-not-Loft’, an apartment in the 1868 Xurigué building on the bustling Parlament Street strip. Built across two deep, narrow bays that typify the architecture of the Eixample district, the 80sqm interior is divided by a bearing wall and three bright interior courtyards.

H30 began by stripping the structure back to a white blank canvas, allowing the diving wall and courtyards to define the configuration and create the feeling of continuous, weightless space.

From point of entry to exterior façade, rooms vary from more to less enclosed, and less to more illuminated. The living room and kitchen face south toward the street, while bedrooms recede behind them, more sheltered and protected.

Portable furnishings that the architects term the ‘(im)moveables’ further define the apartment, arranged within previously neutral spaces to contextualize and differentiate.

“Due to their materiality and shape, they vibrate and fill the apartment with objectual life. They are immovable movables… (Im)movables creating circular flows to increase spatial complexity,” explain the architects.

The timber structures integrate multi-faceted home living elements, for example serving as kitchen counter on one side and living room bookshelf on the other, or sofa and storage compartment.

Believing in fantastical bathroom moments, H3O created an unconventional space decked out in rosy hues, from the pink marble countertops to the rosy red cabinetry and tiles.

“When the doors open, the red drains over the whole entrance and crosses it. Then the bathroom lengthens by multiple reflections that expand an indeed narrow space and make it part of the whole,” H3O explain.

Throughout “Loft-not-Loft”, the architects stick to muted and natural tones, with a colour palette “mixing cream, pink marble, wood, some stainless steel and a punch of black plugs.”