A house where work is life: workshops occupy the main spaces of the floor

In the heart of the Raval district, an apartment with an impossible floor plan has been converted into a home-cum-studio that prioritizes art—or the work of art—over relaxation. This is Agustí Costa's interior design project for an artist who wants to live by working, not work for the sake of living. On Barcelona's Carrer del Carmen, on the top floor of an 1870 Modernista building renovated by Josep Pujol i Brull in 1911, the apartment measures only 1.25 meters wide in some sections and reaches 6.45 meters in others, encompassing at least eight different widths over 33 linear meters.^² Useful. The long, narrow space, with four interior courtyards and many structural elements, was meant to cease being a conventional home. It's now a workshop with a bedroom, kitchen, and living room.

This is the challenge interior designer Agustí Costa took on: transforming a degraded structure, with cracks, dampness, and damaged floors, into a contemporary home-workshop, yet in keeping with the past. The new owner, an artist of drawing, illustration, animation, and printmaking, was very clear from the start about what she wanted: natural light. Costa explains it this way: "The brief required us to escape convention. The apartment had to have three workshops, a computer area, storage spaces, and, secondly, the rooms typical of a home: kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, and bathroom." They had to transform it, of course, "without losing the hydraulic mosaics or the original plaster moldings, or the modernist spirit that still floats between the walls," says the interior designer.

The intervention was carried out surgically. Partitions, doors, and hallways were removed to gain width and visibility. Now the floor plan can be seen at a glance, and the space flows. Order is not determined by the walls, but by the furniture, most of which are custom-designed. It is a single, self-organizing space. And yes, at the artist's request, the studios occupy the areas with the most natural light—the one from the street and the one overlooking the courtyard. One of the studios, at the back, connects to the computer room and a gallery converted into a reading corner thanks to a green curtain. The other studios, at the other end, face the street and are connected by two large openings. The entire space is designed for uninterrupted work: the relaxation area is reduced to its essentials.

In the central volume, the kitchen-dining room, the bedroom, and the living area. Also the bathroom, a translucent glass cube that floats in the middle of the floor plan and illuminates the surrounding areas. It has access from both ends, and its raised platform allows the appliances to be hidden. Next door, the linear kitchen, integrated into the space, blends into the living room. In fact, everything on this floor connects without doors. Only the bathroom has one. The bedroom is isolated by a strategically placed bookcase-closet in the hallway.

The original mosaic flooring has been restored, and where it was missing, vinyl or rectified mosaic has been laid. Specifically, as a nod to the modernism that once defined this building, the light is always distributed through anodized aluminum tubes. It is, in the words of its designer, "an exercise in reconciling the old and the new, in painstaking reduction, exploring new forms without breaking the thread of time." And, in any case, it's a place that clearly demonstrates that you don't live here to rest, you live here to create.

From 1.25 to 6.45 meters wide

This Raval apartment has devilish dimensions. Its 35 meters long and completely irregular width, ranging from just over a meter to 6.45 meters, encompassing eight different sizes, was once a home-cum-corridor. After the renovation of Estudio Agustí Costa, this artist's studio-cum-home is a succession of spaces that alternate between work and life.