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    Gold-leaf wall divides renovated Barcelona apartment by Raúl Sánchez Architects

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    Architect Raúl Sánchez has renovated a flat in a typical Barcelona apartment building, adding built-in cabinetry and furnishings in hues that echo the original mosaic flooring.

    The 85-square-metre flat was created following the subdivision of a larger apartment with aspects towards the Carrer d’Enric Granados on one side and a large internal courtyard on the other.
    Raúl Sánchez Architects has renovated a Barcelona apartmentSánchez’s studio was tasked with making the most of the available space, which is just six metres wide and needed to incorporate two bedrooms and two bathrooms along with a generous living area.
    Following the partitioning of the original apartment, this smaller flat was left with an entrance set within the building’s interior at one end and a gallery-like room overlooking the courtyard at the other.
    A wall covered in gold leaf separates the living area from the gallerySánchez chose to leave the main living area and gallery open to enhance the sense of space and connection with the view.

    The rest of the interior comprises private functions that are arranged along a hallway leading from the entrance to the living space.
    The gallery houses the dining room and overlooks the courtyard”I wanted to maximise the light throughout the apartment and make something special of the corridor that was necessary given the situation of entering at one end,” the architect told Dezeen.
    “Even though the apartment is small, there are different space situations like differences in height, materials, dimension or colour, which create a very rich experience inside the flat.”
    The kitchen features a pink marble splashbackThe hallway is lined with full-height cabinetry, incorporating doors that lead to the bedrooms on either side. Each bedroom receives natural light and ventilation from a window that opens onto an internal courtyard.
    Small annexes that serve as dressing rooms connect the bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, one of which is also accessible from the hallway. These spaces feature cabinets, shelves and handles made from water-resistant varnished MDF.
    The flat is styled with modern design pieces including a sofa from KragelundThe walls lining the hall feature a rose-gold finish, only interrupted by a pair of dark blue lacquered bookshelves roughly halfway along.
    Sánchez explained that the colour choices derive directly from the intricate mosaic floors, which were preserved and treated to restore them to their original condition.

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    Rooms where the mosaic had previously been removed now feature off-white micro cement floors.
    “Everything inside the apartment has a bit of that brownish-reddish-beige hue of the tiles,” he pointed out. “Even the blue of the shelves, which may seem a big contrast, can also be found in the tiles.”
    Full-height cabinetry lines the hallway of the flatThe hallway’s walls form a datum that extends through into the living space, where the original exposed ceiling beams create a differentiation in height that is emphasised by a subtle change in colour.
    The rose-gold hue used for the cabinets is echoed by a pink Portuguese marble splashback in the kitchen that was assembled from unmatched salvaged slabs.
    Small annexes connect the bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms from the hallwayAn existing structural wall separating the living area from the gallery space was covered with gold leaf in order to lighten its appearance and conceal its load-bearing purpose.
    “This imparts a more symbolic and abstract presence, serving as a connection element with the exterior, reflecting the light that falls upon it from the backyard,” said Sánchez.
    The flat’s furnishings echo the mosaic flooring of the original apartment designThe property is owned by a client based in Dubai, who will use it as a pied-a-terre as well as renting it out some of the time.
    It was styled with modern design pieces including a sofa from Kragelund, a chaise longue by Sancal and a cork stool from Vitra.
    Dark-blue lacquered bookshelves coexist side-by-side with the rose-gold cabinetryLocal gallery Víctor Lope Arte Contemporáneo provided the various artworks.
    Raúl Sánchez has lived and worked in Barcelona since 2005, where his studio takes on global projects across architecture, interiors, urbanism and design.
    The office was named emerging interior design studio of the year at Dezeen Awards 2022 and has previously completed projects including a townhouse with a four-storey spiral staircase and an apartment featuring a shiny brass wardrobe.

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      Forte Forte's first US store features golden changing rooms and balancing stones

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      Light fixtures inspired by James Turrell artworks, balancing stones, and a circular golden changing room feature in the interiors of fashion brand Forte Forte’s Los Angeles boutique.

      The Italian label’s art director Robert Vattilana designed the interiors of the store, which is located at 8424 Melrose Place in Los Angeles – the first Forte Forte branch in the US.
      Vattilana called the design “an ineffable balance of the geometric and the organic”.
      The store features a sage green enamelled metal facadeTwo rectilinear shop windows are framed by a sage-green enamelled metal facade with the boutique’s glowing logo. The recessed front door is crafted from enamelled wood.
      Inside, a bright white ceiling is lit at the edges casting light on the textured walls, which create a neutral backdrop for Vattilana’s minimal but eclectic designs.

      A mixture of pastel and brighter tones define the space”The Los Angeles boutique is meant as a concise and vibrant project where light becomes matter, in an ineffable balance of the geometric and the organic,” the interior designer told Dezeen.
      Both pastel hues and brighter pops of colour are seen in the store’s furniture, which ranges from chunky terrazzo planters and gold shelving to a powdery pink chaise longue.
      The changing rooms were placed in a rounded gold boothThe amount of garments on display is minimal, with single dresses suspended delicately from various squiggly formations of gold wire.
      Changing rooms exist within a rounded, bright gold pod that is separated into cubicles. These feature a mixture of plush sea-green textiles and an array of mirrors.

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      Another standout element is two giant stones placed in front of ethereal, full-height muslin curtains, one of which balances on top of the other in a dramatic formation.
      “The stones are from the Palm Springs desert and are meant as a tribute to the work of [former Swiss art duo] Peter Fischli and David Weiss,” explained Vattilana.
      Two giant stones add drama to the boutiqueBack-lit, circular openings throw light on the boutique, which, according to the designer, also take cues from an existing artist.
      “Perimeters and ceilings create movement and an iridescent light emerges from the total depth of the shop, referring to the luminous geometries of [light artist] James Turrell,” he continued.
      The lighting was informed by the work of James TurrellVattilana described the brand’s Los Angeles store as a space that “echoes the volumes and lines of Californian modernism,” as it follows a group of uniquely designed Forte Forte stores in locations such as Milan and London.
      “The contrast with Italian materials and finishes enriches the balance of components with further nuances, sealing the uniqueness of the project.”
      “Each Forte Forte location follows a different rhythm,” he concluded.
      Giada Forte and her brother Paolo Forte founded the Italian fashion brand in 2002. Its other store designs include a Tuscan boutique with a hull-style ceiling and a Rome store “drowned” in green onyx.
      The images are courtesy of Forte Forte.

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      Tom Postma Design suspends 1,400 porcelain plates in gold-gilded room at Fondazione Prada

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      A Fondazione Prada exhibition about Chinese export porcelain, designed by Dutch firm Tom Postma Design, was housed within three prefabricated timber volumes clad in velvet and real gold leaf.From January to September 2020, The Porcelain Room installation was staged in one large exhibition space in the OMA-designed Torre annexe.
      The Porcelain Room has been shortlisted for this year’s Dezeen Award in the exhibition design category.

      Above: two of the timber volumes were clad in velvet and one in gold leaf. Top image: the final, golden room housed 1,400 porcelain plates
      Visitors passed through the walk-through volumes within it, tracing the history and legacy of Chinese porcelain in Europe and the Middle East.

      The installation progressed in chronological order, showcasing porcelain pieces dating back to the arrival of the Portuguese in south China in the early 16th century, all the way up to the 19th century.
      After passing through the first two rooms, the climactic highlight of the show was the final, gold-gilded room. Here, 1,400 of the approximately 1,700 porcelain pieces in the exhibition were suspended from the walls and ceiling.

      Porcelain pieces were suspended from the walls and ceiling of the Golden Porcelain Room
      This offered a modern reimagining of the porcelain rooms found in European palaces and aristocratic houses of the time, such as the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin and the Santos Palace in Lisbon.
      Then, China plates and other tableware pieces were used as decorative rather than functional items, arranged into lavish displays that covered most of the visible surfaces including the walls and sometimes even the ceiling like three-dimensional wallpaper.

      The room was a modern interpretation of the royal and aristocratic porcelain rooms of the time
      “These porcelain rooms were the first examples of people using objects designed for a purpose, usually dishes intended for the table, in a completely different way as pieces of a decorative puzzle,” said Jorge Welsh, who curated the exhibition alongside Luísa Vinhais.
      “To bring the original concept into a contemporary context, we designed a dense, abstract pattern in which each piece of porcelain is used rather as if it were a pigment, chosen for its colour and shape, to create a kind of mural that engulfs the exhibition space.”

      Black display cases housed rare made-to-order pieces in the first room
      In contrast to this, the first two volumes were much more muted, covered inside and out in deep brown velvet.
      The introductory room housed some of the first porcelain editions, which were made-to-order for Portuguese and Spanish clients in the 16th and 17th century.
      Of the approximately 150 pieces of this type that remain in the world according to Welsh, 53 were displayed here, set against a deep black backdrop and illuminated by spotlights to allow their rarity to speak for itself.

      The second room showcased tableware shaped like animals, vegetables and fruit
      The second room took the form of a 12-metre long corridor, flanked by display cases on either side that contained later tableware designs, shaped like different animals, vegetables and fruit to cater to Western tastes.
      This passageway led the way into the golden room, with a layout designed in collaboration Welsh and Vinhais, who also co-founded the Jorge Welsh Works of Art gallery.

      The second room acted as a corridor leading into the last
      Using cutouts of each of the hundreds of plates, they created a scale model of the room, which was then transferred into a digital drawing by Tom Postma Design.
      “We checked every single plate and assigned it a unique code, indexing its display position, diameter, typology, the distance from the wall and other data,” Paride Piccinini, an architectural engineer at Tom Postma Design, told Dezeen.
      “Then we attached a life-sized print out of the drawing to the walls in order to drill the supports in exactly the right positions.”

      Welsh and Vinhais designed the pattern using a scale model
      This allowed the team to develop an unobtrusive system of fixings and lighting that kept the overall design clean and minimal.
      “This immersive environment needs effective lighting to able to reach all the pieces in all directions, without blinding the visitors or showing the source of light,” said Piccinini.
      “This issue has been solved with a system of diffused and hidden spotlights, embedded into the walls, the ceiling, the floor and the glass balustrade system.”

      Tom Postma Design developed the reuseable lighting and supports in the Golden Porcelain Room
      The gold gilding, which took a group of artisans five days to apply to the interior and exterior of the volume leaf by leaf, mirrored the colours of the porcelain and reflected light onto the plates from behind.

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      Aside from the smallest spotlights, the lighting system was developed from reused fixtures from Fondozione Prada’s existing supply. The whole installation was designed to be disassembled and used again.

      Underneath the cladding, the installation consists of modular timber panels
      “The installation is entirely built from timber, with modular panels that can be stored and reused for future exhibitions,” said Piccinini.
      “The metallic supports for the plates, the lighting system, shelves and display cases can also be reused for a similar installation.”
      Other projects nominated for Dezeen Awards include a memorial filled with items that belonged to victims of gun violence and ĒTER’s multi-sensory design for an exhibition about ASMR at ArkDes.
      Photography is by Mark Niedermann.

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