The existing interior space was an archetype of a Barcelona’s Eixample flat. Space configuration – based on small rooms concatenation – and its characteristic constructive elements – such as the hydraulic flooring, high ceilings with moldings, old wooden windows and doors, a free height of 350cm, or some singular elements like a wall fireplace – remained intact.
On a site near the railway line, this single-family house is built in a volume whose geometry follows the alignments of the plot. Under a simple programme, the Project is divided into two floors where common areas are separated from rest areas. The daytime units are located on the ground floor linked to a pool and perimeter garden on a wide terrace presided by the projection of the main facade of the house.
Bitxo House stands on the gentle hills of the Pre-Pyrenean landscape of Graugés, a hundred kilometres north of Barcelona, in Catalonia, with the Queralt mountain range at the background. It is located in a suburban area between “mountain style” houses.
The owners, Xavier and Queralt, both of them musicians, acquired, about 20 years ago, a plot to fill the stave of life with their music. Over time, without rush. The design and construction of the house extended for over ten years.
A home that tries to challenge typologies and traditional ways of living. Simple yet complex, it looks fully opened to the landscape in one of its façades, while the other façade is seen more hermetic to ensure its privacy.
The first thing we did was to think about the people, about the future inhabitants. The building had to have more than one hundred rental houses with one or two bedrooms for the elderly.
We thought about how the elderly would contribute to the building’s characteristics. The key was to imagine how they would live in it. We could see them taking care of plants in ceramic pots, and how all these plants would hang down from the windows and railings like a green cascade. We could also see them sitting in the sun, enjoying the views and gathering together for a chat, talking to each other across the balconies… This is how we got the idea of having large south-facing terraces looking out onto the landscape. Moreover, having the terraces staggered –in a cascade, – would allow us to give a terrace to the highest number of homes.
We found ourselves with a dwelling in Barcelona’s Eixample District, located in one of its iconic chamfered corners, a situation that implicated certain peculiarities in terms of distribution and structure, main points in our proposal. Its beams, perpendicular to the walls that support them, become a fan as they meet the chamfered edge in order to adapt to the typical constructive solution of turn of the century buildings in the Eixample.
For Artigas Arquitectes, the main aims of this project are, to design a house with a high level of privacy from the street, whilst creating interior wide spaces that take advantage of the conditions of the site.
Casa Bonay opens this month as a first-of-its-kind 67-room hotel in the restored 19th century mansion of the Bonay family. The iconic building, built in 1869, has been carefully revitalized with a mind to maintaining the property’s exquisite original features, while establishing an energetic, creative hub for visitors and neighbours.
This project is the result of some unconsciousness mixed with a lot of admiration. The unconsciousness came from the side of the clients, Neus and Kenji of Can Kenji team, commissioning his new Japanese restaurant “izakaya” to a team that had never designed a restaurant and not even been in Japan. The admiration is ours to a culture as unknown as admired.
Palau Sant Jordi designed for the 1992 Olympics, by Arata Isozaki, have evolved and changed its skin into multiple, different and variable faces during the last two decades. From U2, or Bruce Springsteen to the Rolling Stones have gone through its rooms, scenarios and walls.
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