LoveDesignBuildRepeat
Apartment in l’Antiga Esquerra de l’Eixample of Barcelona
Location: Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixample, Barcelona, Spain . GFA: 320 sqm
Architectural concept
finca regia heritage
The Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixample is one of the most storied quarters of Barcelona - a district where Catalan modernisme breathes through every stone facade and where domestic life has always been an act of quiet theater. Our studio was invited to reimagine a 320 sqm apartment within a finca regia heritage building: a project that demanded equal reverence for the past and ambition for the contemporary. The client - a person of refined cultural appetite and genuine cosmopolitan sensibility - wished for a home that holds original art, renovated antique masterpieces, and the warmth of daily family ritual inside a single, coherent architectural narrative. We proposed not a renovation in the ordinary sense, but a recomposition - a careful act of upcycling and transformation in which every decision carries both emotional and environmental weight.
Spatial organisation
The logic of space was rethought entirely - daily routines rescheduled, zones redistributed, light redistributed with them. The dining room, which anchors the social heart of the apartment, opens to a monumental scale that surprises: a long oval table set beneath a sculptural chandelier of gilded botanical forms, surrounded by rattan cane chairs whose warmth echoes the terracotta of the ceiling above. A large-format artwork in black and gold commands the rear wall, anchoring the room between drama and domesticity. It is organically connected to the kitchen-dining room, which was designed as a spectacular destination in its own right - a generous, impeccably equipped space conceived for both intimate family mornings and generous hospitality. The smart replanification of circulation routes allows natural movement to flow across the apartment without interruption, dissolving the boundaries between cooking, gathering, and repose.
Materials and climate
volta catalana ceiling
Our studio grounded every material decision in the Mediterranean context and the specificity of the building itself. The volta catalana ceiling - a shallow vaulted brick structure of extraordinary visual richness - was preserved and celebrated, its warm terracotta tones setting the chromatic register for the entire interior. Hydraulic encaustic tiles in traditional geometric patterns cover the floors in a palette of rust, ivory, and slate, sourced locally and laid in their original nineteenth-century tradition; their thermal mass absorbs midday heat and releases it slowly into cooler evening hours. Walls are finished in Girona limestone where structural elements called for it, its pale cream surface lending both weight and luminosity. Recycled and upcycled materials were integrated throughout - salvaged timbers, restored fixtures, antique pieces given new structural roles - so that the apartment holds its history rather than erasing it.
Style
The project reads as Mediterranean Minimalism — simplicity, natural light, texture over colour, and the indoor-outdoor flow that defines the great Mediterranean house. The palette holds to white, sand, terracotta, olive, and sea blue; the materials to lime plaster, natural wood (oak, olive), linen, terracotta, and natural stone. The discipline is in what is left out: no cluttered accessorising, no heavy curtains, no dark walls, never the clinical Scandinavian-white finish imported over local tile. The regional sub-style reads as Balearic white-and-sand — limewashed walls, bare stone or sisal floors, linen — calibrated to the specific light of the site.
In this project the family reads as heritage-listed Eixample apartment with hydraulic tile and contemporary art.
Bioclimatic strategy
Mediterranean climate Csa
Barcelona's Mediterranean climate Csa classification - hot dry summers peaking above 30 degrees Celsius, mild and wetter winters - shaped every passive design decision. Exterior blinds on all sun-exposed openings allow precise solar gain management across the long outdoor season, which here extends seven months from April through October. Cross-ventilation pathways were reestablished through the smart replanification of internal partitions, allowing the prevailing coastal breezes to move through the apartment without mechanical assistance. Deep window reveals and the geometry of the volta catalana ceiling create natural shadow gradients that cool the interior during peak afternoon hours, while allowing lower winter sun to penetrate and warm the Girona limestone and hydraulic tile mass. The balance of sunlight and shadow is not decorative here - it is structural to the comfort of daily life.
Energy and sustainability
The project meets full compliance with Spanish CTE DB-HE energy performance standards, with enhanced insulation at the building envelope to reduce thermal bridging at the heritage facade junctions. The primary heating and cooling system is an aerothermal heat pump - efficient, quiet, and entirely compatible with the building's architectural character - distributing conditioned air invisibly so that no mechanical element competes with the spatial composition. The commitment to recycling and upcycling of materials reduced embodied carbon across the build and gave each salvaged element a renewed purpose within the contemporary program.
Landscape
The apartment opens through generous windows toward the interior garden courtyard characteristic of the Eixample block typology - a planted refuge that performs both visually and climatically, moderating the urban heat island effect and offering eye contact with Mediterranean species suited to the local Csa conditions.
Conclusion
Our studio understands that in a building of this history and a district of this reputation, luxury renovation Barcelona does not announce itself through excess - it reveals itself through proportion, through the quality of silence between one material and the next, and through a home that has learned, at last, how to breathe.
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