The project consisted of reviving a space located on the first floor of a building from the fifties in the neighborhood of Sants in Barcelona. A house and a shop, with little maintenance since the building was built, with damages caused by humidity and the passage of time. In addition, the largest of the interior courtyards had been blinded with a fiber cement roof, limiting natural lighting and ventilation. Even though it was in poor condition at the beginning, the possibility of recovering the large rear courtyard, the wide opening in the façade and the good clear height gave sense to the obstinacy.

First of all, the rear courtyard was recovered by removing the asbestos cement roof and the access opening was enlarged to gain more light. It was necessary to completely renovate the buried horizontal sewage network and a new concrete floor with thermal insulation was built. The plaster on the walls was also repointed, until the bricks were exposed, in order to completely repair the humidity problems.

The existing floor plan organization was modified, eliminating useless distributors and visually opening up the spaces as much as possible. Since it is a ground floor, special care was taken to maximize natural light to all spaces and the few interior doors were made of wood.

An important part of the budget had to be allocated to basic structural and sanitation works. In any case, for the finishes and coatings, quality materials were chosen, but sober and unsophisticated. Priority was given to the sensation of spaciousness and the great compositional patterns of order, avoiding sophisticated effects that would excessively condition the end user’s freedom to use the spaces.

On the exposed brick walls, a breathable white glaze is applied, which does not hide the texture of the material. At the junction between the brick and the plastered upper part and coinciding with the height of the lintel of the openings, there is a strip of wood that hides both the guides of the sliding doors and the conduit that feeds the exposed branches of the electrical installation.

Ceramic tiles on walls and floors in 20×20 cm format, in various colors but with a predominance of white to maximize brightness. Wooden doors with enough beta and cabinets lacquered in contrasting color provide warmth. The exterior carpentries are aluminum, with thermal bridge break and insulating glass. The closing of the street of the premises also incorporates a sliding galvanized deployé lattice, as a security lock and sun protection in summer.

The thermal conditioning of both the premises and the house is by means of air ducts (hot and cold) and aerothermal heat pump, with the outdoor units located on the communal roof.