Student Housing Apartment Renovation in Madrid by Plutarco

Spanish interior design and architectural studio Plutarco, were commissioned to renovate a building in Madrid for student housing. If student housing brings to mind institutional dullness and lack of individuality, you’re not alone. In fact, it was Plutarco’s very object to make the 110-square-metre building distinct and unique by giving each space its own personality. They went about creating this unique signature by applying different wall and floor colours and using different materials.

“Our first approach was to avoid the typical student housing in which everything looks the same and feels cold without personality. We wanted every inhabitant of this house to feel special by using a completely different aesthetic in each room,” said the design team.

The student housing is divided into five bedrooms, three bathrooms and a communal kitchen and living-room. The kitchen/living room is the centre axis of the building with the bedrooms projecting off this main meeting area. The rooms are divided essentially into colours. ‘The Blue/Green Room,’ with its hydraulic checkerboard floors and timber panelling gives the space a contemporary aristocratic flavour. ‘The Earth Room,’ much as it sounds, is earthy and grounding, with terrazzo flooring which wraps along the floor and up the walls creating a headboard for the bed.

See more projects by Plutarco on Yellowtrace here.

There is also a ‘Black Room’ and a ‘Wooden Room,’ which as you might expect, is finished almost entirely in timber. And finally, the ‘Blue/Beige Room,’ the smallest room of the apartments, which has an ensuite bathroom, ostensibly added to offer a little something extra to make the space more appealing.

The twin bathrooms are equally as lovely. One finished in red and Bordeaux and the other inspired by the Majorelle garden of Yves Saint Laurent.

The end result is a feeling that they have treated each room as an individual project. This in itself can be challenging if you wish to have the seven very different spaces reading in harmony with each other. But in harmony they are, and the students who live there are able to feel that their living and sleeping quarters are as individual as themselves.

See more projects by Plutarco on Yellowtrace here.