80 square meters for a new home

The renovation of an 80 m2 apartment² Located in the Sant Quintí building, this is the small but heartfelt tribute that the Twobo Arquitectura team has paid to the architects of this iconic building from 1970s Barcelona. Architects Pablo Twose, María Pancorbo, and Alberto Twose, founders of Twobo, Pérez de la Vega, conceived it for the entire Santo Quintino.

Thus, Twobo has transported the codes of that pioneering architecture designed for the building of more than considerable dimensions that was built on a corner opposite the Sant Pau Hospital into the apartment. It was intended—and still is—to house healthcare personnel and also relatives of patients who must reside in the city occasionally. In fact, after the renovation, the apartment continues with this use, as a rental home for a healthcare worker.

The keys to the project

Colours as a guide within a space, the desire to facilitate circulation as much as possible, a somewhat geometric spirit as a criterion of order, the most open areas possible and also natural clarity with the aim of multiplying the sensation of space and cleanliness, are some of the keys to that unique project from the 70s that now², characterize the renovated apartment as a tribute to the Sant Quintí building. They are simple, highly graphic, and certainly functional codes, and when you see the Twobo team's similar interpretation of these original features from a half-century-old project, you understand how fully they are still relevant today.

Now, that apartment, which most recently served as an office, has a new layout. With the renovation, the open-plan layout, with its curious geometry and, in principle, not easy to organize, has adopted a functional form that defines the different spaces, provides privacy to those areas where it is most needed, and also maintains the spaciousness that is essential for a home of this size.

The renovation had to be undertaken on a low budget. Thus, both the floor and ceiling have been left as they were. Instead, special emphasis has been placed on the new layout of the space and, above all, on a fluid and very circular circulation around a newly created central piece.

Around the bathroom

When the architects saw the pillar in the middle of the space, they decided to take advantage of it. It is precisely because of this pillar that the bathroom is located around it and, therefore, in the middle of the apartment. The bathroom, with its toilet, WC, and shower, is now the centerpiece of the apartment. It is a space that not only performs its specific functions but also marks the route of the house. It gives dimension to the entrance and suggests the routes from there; it half reveals, half hides the kitchen; it opens up the living area and also opens it up to the natural light from a large, horizontal window, causing a turn toward the master bedroom, which guarantees privacy and provides practically direct access to the bathroom in question. This completes the apartment's perimeter, traversing the exterior perimeter of the bathroom.

There's another element that favors this circular route. As can be seen in the plan, the fact that the tiled kitchen wall makes a small gesture of separating itself from the apartment's perimeter wall, although it's a solution to conceal some pipes, also encourages this circular route. The kitchen is also adjacent to a small study-bedroom enclosed by a red-framed glass window.

A dialogue of colors

The architects at Twobo, in this homage to the architects of the Sant Quintí building—one of them, Luis Twose, is a relative, whom they always acknowledge as a master—also wanted to bring the colors that define the 1970s building to the new apartment. While the building's common areas have been dominated, since its origins, by white, white, white.

Like a kind of signage, just as in the building's common corridors, each room has its own color: simple, clear, primary. White multiplies the clarity with the tiles on the exterior perimeter of the bathroom and the kitchen front. Yellow, a striking yellow, marks the doors, the entrance to the apartment and also the bathroom, in addition to finding continuity in large areas of the interior of this central space. Blue distinguishes the kitchen and counterpoints the white of the tiles, but also the yellow of the bathroom. And red, from the stained-glass windows, the window, and some closet doors, marks the profile.