From old workshop to home studio

If most houses are designed—and in detail—before being inhabited, this one is being designed while living and working in it. We are located in an old warehouse between party walls in Reus, an old lighting workshop that the founding architects of the Pigaa studio, Sílvia González Porqueres and Andreu Pont Aineto, bought without many resources and which they have gradually made their own. They have transformed it, but first they got to know it, occupied it, and put it to the test. And they are still not finished.

The warehouse is one of the first concrete structures built in the center of Reus. It has two floors of about 150 square meters each and occupies one of the last vestiges of a small industrial expansion that emerged between the city center and the old train station. Around it, the buildings have grown in height and have gradually erased the memory of the neighborhood. The small warehouse has been wedged between much taller constructions.

Therefore, before starting to transform it, the Pigaa architects decided to inhabit it. The first step was to take ownership of the space with the bare essentials and observe what happened there. There are documents that record this progression: from the unoccupied warehouse in November 2021, to occasional occupations, a three-month summer camp, and later, increasingly domestic uses. This way of working allowed them to understand how the light entered, how the temperature changed, and which corners worked best depending on the time of day and year. The renovation, therefore, did not start only from a blueprint, but from experience.

And the first operation was to empty it. At the back of the warehouse, they demolished the annexes and a part of the roof to open up a small, generously planted courtyard. At the back, where before there were only walls, now there is light, air, and greenery. It was a way of creating the views that the building did not have. With a succession of windows, the courtyard is framed, making the vegetation a constant presence.

From the street, two large arched glass windows reveal the most public part of the house: the studio. Inside, a central core organizes the floor plan and separates or connects the two large realms of living and working. There is no rigid boundary between home and office. Curtains and large sliding wooden doors open or close depending on the moment and the degree of privacy the situation requires. Now, during the day, for example, almost the entire floor becomes a studio. The box containing the bedroom remains closed with a curtain and the rest of the space works as a single room. When it is time to live there, the operation is reversed. It also depends on who crosses the door. The house can show itself more or less, open certain spaces to clients, or reserve others. This capacity for change is what gives a very unique meaning to the project. The warehouse does not have a single use or a definitive configuration. The spaces change function and the building continues to evolve.

The walls and ceilings still retain the wounds of the construction work and the marks of what has happened there. They have not been erased because they tell the story of a transformation made without haste and also with the need to build as resources became available. In fact, on the upper floor, for the moment, almost everything is yet to be done. The gabled space remains empty, except when a large table turns it into a place for celebrations with friends. It is a room in waiting. Perhaps one day it will be the living quarters. The fact is that this is a house-studio that does not yet want to be definitive. More than a finished project, it is a way of occupying and transforming architecture.