Spain

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      Game On's neon-filled exhibition design paid homage to 80s video games

      by

      Spanish practice Smart & Green Design re-designed the Barbican’s touring Game On exhibition for a former underground cistern in Madrid, using more than 150 LED arches to evoke the neon colours of the 1980s.The retrospective, which is reportedly the largest international exhibition to explore the history of video games, spans more than 400 collector’s objects and drawings covering the birth of the technology in the 1960s to the present day.

      Visitors to the exhibition can play 150 video games
      Alongside this, 150 original video games can be played as part of the show, including early games like Space Invaders and Tetris, classics like Rock Band, Pokemon and The Sims as well as more recent games like Fifa and Wii Sports.
      After touring more than 30 countries including China, the US and Australia, the exhibition came to Madrid between November 2019 and May 2020 courtesy of arts and culture foundation Fundación Canal.

      The LEDs are arranged into colour-coded arches

      Game On’s revamped set-up, which won Smart & Green Design the public vote at this year’s Dezeen Awards in the exhibition design category, relied heavily on multicoloured LED tubes suspended throughout the exhibition space.
      Set against an otherwise dimly lit interior, these nodded to the vector graphics of early video games such as Battle Zone, in which simple lines and curves on a black backdrop were used to create the illusion of three-dimensional spaces.
      LEDs were arranged into colour-coded arches and tunnels to create the impression of architectural elements, demarcating 15 distinct sections and guiding visitors through the exhibition.

      V&A curator Marie Foulston describes five pioneering designs in Videogames exhibition

      “The design follows simple geometries and repetitions as some of the most famous video games did,” Smart & Green Design’s founder Fernando Muñoz told Dezeen.
      “These lines created perspectives and the illusion of a 3D space, despite all the elements being two dimensional.”
      Each section was also signposted through a neon sign proclaiming its theme, which was suspended in the air in a nod to the floating score numbers often found in the top corner of a game’s screen.

      Neon signs read the names of the different sections
      The main challenge for the studio was to balance the buzz and excitement of an arcade with the kind of quiet, contemplative spaces needed to take in the archival objects, sketches and the stories behind them.
      For this purpose, Muñoz developed two distinct spatial typologies.
      While stations for playing the games were placed inside of the cistern’s existing 7.5-metre tall brick arches, each illuminated by an LED frame, the remaining exhibits were housed in “lights tunnels”, running perpendicularly to the arches.

      Stations for playing the video games are integrated into the cistern’s existing brick arches
      “We designed several tunnels using rectangular timber frames with lights integrated into them,” said Muñoz.
      “The rhythm of these structures created the feeling of being inside a separate space and they also hold either walls or vitrines to show the contents.”

      The light tunnels run perpendicularly to the existing brick arches (marked in black above)
      To create these walls, the studio opted for sound-absorbing panels, which had the dual benefit of muffling the noise coming from the gaming area outside as well as being easier to reuse for future exhibitions.
      “We try not to use heavy resources like MDF or drywall, which cannot be reused without generating waste and need a lot of energy both in the assembly and disassembly,” said Muñoz.
      “We try to create lightweight systems that are easily assembled and stored and with standardised dimensions so that they can be reused and adapted to any space or design.”

      Walls are integrated into the light tunnels to house information
      In order to offset the high embodied energy of the LEDs, Muñoz designed the lighting system to be modular, with tubes that are either half a metre, one metre or two metres long, so that they can be efficiently stored and repurposed again and again in different constellations.
      This is part of the studio’s wider strategy to try and cut down the amount of waste produced through temporary installations.

      The walls are made of sound-absorbent panels
      “The exhibitions industry is responsible for a huge amount of waste due to the ephemeral condition of its products,” Muñoz explained.
      “We believe that through design and longterm strategies of collaborating with exhibition organisers, waste can be reduced. We have designed our own carbon calculator and tailored protocols to interact with the administration and coordinators in the exhibitions world.”

      The exhibition was on show until May 2020
      Aside from Game On, other exhibition designs shortlisted for Dezeen Awards 2020 include a memorial filled with items that belonged to victims of gun violence and an installation at Fondazione Prada with 1,400 porcelain plates suspended from the walls of a golden room.
      Although the recipients of the public vote have already been determined, the winners of the official Dezeen Awards, judged by a panel of experts including Norman Foster, Michelle Ogundehin and Konstantin Grcic, will not be announced until the end of November.
      The Game On exhibition took place from 29 November 2019 to 31 May 2020 at Madrid’s Castellana 214. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

      Read more: More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      Old Spanish workshop converted into tactile family home by Nomos

      by

      Tactile bricks and pinewood partitions decorate the La Nave apartment, which Nomos has slotted into the concrete shell of a disused workshop in Madrid, Spain.La Nave was developed by Nomos as a family home for two of its partners, Ophélie Herranz and Paul Galindo, who head up its Spanish office.
      The project has since been shortlisted for apartment interior of the year at Dezeen Awards 2020.

      Wood and brick partitions divide the old workshop’s concrete shell
      La Nave was originally used as a large, open-plan printshop arranged around a structural concrete grid measuring 34 metres in length and 10 metres in depth.

      Nomos’ intervention retains this structure but converts its open layout into a continuous loop of living areas, arranged around enclosed private rooms.

      The new partitions are positioned at angles to the outer walls
      “La Nave is the transformation of an industrial space into a place for life, which takes place as a continuous sequence, with very little difference between work and family leisure,” said the studio, which also has offices in Geneva and Lisbon.
      “La Nave’s plan escapes any typological definition. It results from the search for new spatialities required by existing constraints.”

      Bricks and wood were used to warm the existing concrete structure
      Nomos’ initial plan for the apartment was to position the enclosed spaces and wet areas on the rear wall – opposite to the only facade with windows.
      However, La Nave’s existing plumbing is attached to the central concrete columns, meaning the wet areas had to be placed centrally too.

      The bedrooms and bathrooms are enclosed by the new partitions
      To achieve this while ensuring natural light could enter the depths of the apartment, Nomos positioned the wet areas and enclosed rooms in line with the central columns, but at a 45-degree angle to the outer walls.
      They are divided into two parts and set back from windows, making space either side and in between to ensuring light from the windows can pass through.

      Glazed bricks line the wet areas and bathrooms
      “The typological strategy started from the search for the optimal location of the service spaces,” Herranz told Dezeen.
      “The wet cores had to reach the downspouts, attached to the central pillars, but we wanted to move them towards the back of the space, to offer more light to the living spaces. We rotated them 45 degrees and explored the potential of the diagonal.”

      Original beams and brickwork add warmth to pared-back Madrid apartment

      The layout creates a continuous loop of shared living spaces around the perimeter of the apartment, which are used for work, play and dining.
      “We never thought of creating a large, open, loft-like space, but rather a sequence of well-defined spaces, which would give rise to multiple situations,” Herranz added.

      Bedrooms are positioned through the centre of the apartment
      By setting the private living spaces away from the windows, Nomos also made space for a “winter garden” along the window wall.
      This area doubles as a thermal buffer – a space that separates living areas from the outside to reduce dependence on artificial heating and cooling.

      The “winter garden” doubles as a thermal buffer
      The predominant material throughout the renovation is glazed brick, finished in white and cobalt blue, teamed with a pinewood framework and MDF panels.
      The materials were chosen by Nomos to complement the existing concrete structure while providing the space with a warmer and more homely atmosphere.

      Patterns are made with glazed and unglazed bricks
      “The qualities of traditional materials provide comfort and reinforce the idea of home, of domesticity, in contrast to the surrounding industrial space,” said Herranz.
      “The glazed bricks provide a note of brightness and colour typical of a more ornamental language.”

      A loop of living spaces wraps the central rooms
      The bricks were used to build most of the partitions, with their glazed sides lining bathrooms and kitchen and the unglazed faces exposed in the living rooms.
      Their glazed and unglazed sides are also alternated in places to create patterns.

      A kitchen aligns with old workshop’s existing plumbing
      The majority of furniture in the space is bespoke, designed by Nomos from pine wood specifically for La Nave.
      This includes a low-lying, circular table and coffee table made from pine, and terrazzo detailing made with old flooring that was removed from the workshop.
      Other projects that are shortlisted for apartment interior of the year at Dezeen Awards 2020 a sea-facing residence in Jaffa by Pitsou Kedem and a two-storey dwelling by Coffey Architects that is covered in thousands of wooden blocks.
      Photography is by Luis Asin.

      Read more: More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      Minimal Fantasy holiday apartment in Madrid is almost completely pink

      by

      Patricia Bustos Studio channelled “aesthetic madness” to create the striking bright-pink interior of this rentable apartment at the heart of Madrid, Spain.Locally-based Patricia Bustos Studio applied 12 different shades of pink throughout the Minimal Fantasy apartment, which is meant to offer a bolder take on the typical holiday rental.
      “We wanted to do something eye-catching and not go unnoticed, since in Madrid the offer of vacation rentals is enormous and you have to differentiate yourself if you want to have a recurrence in the rentals,” the studio told Dezeen.

      Surfaces throughout the apartment are bright pink
      The 55-square-metre apartment is set inside a 1950s residential building that’s a stone’s throw away from Madrid’s lively Puerta del Sol square.

      It formerly played host to just one bedroom and one bathroom, but Patricia Bustos Studio reconfigured the floor plan so that it can comfortably accommodate slightly larger groups of holiday goers.

      An arched doorway looks through to the kitchen
      There are now two bedrooms and an additional bathroom. The kitchen has also been separated from the living area so that, if necessary, it can sleep another two guests.
      With structural changes out the way, the studio set about creating the apartment’s stand-out interior – which is almost exclusively pink.

      Cabinetry in the kitchen is a mix of blue, pink and gold
      “Except for the distribution, which had to be practical, the rest of the project has been an aesthetic madness to take the visitor out of their comfort zone and make them dream,” explained the studio.
      “Pink is already the colour of a whole generation… the generation of the brave, those who are not afraid of change,” it continued.
      “Pink vindicates the fall of stereotypes – everything is possible, nothing is planned or established and that’s the beauty of it. There are no rules, or rather that everyone has their own.”

      Pink cushions and faux-fur throws dress the beds
      In the living area, bubblegum-pink paint has been applied across the walls and ceiling. A flecked pink laminate covers the floor and a chunky L-shaped plinth that winds around the corner of the room, topped with plush pink sofa cushions.
      Guests can gather for meals around the oval-shaped pink dining table, which is surrounded by dining chairs upholstered in metallic pink fabric with an iridescent finish.

      One of the beds is supported by a pink-tile platform
      The monochromatic colour scheme is interrupted in the adjacent kitchen, where the cabinets are covered in a mixture of blue, pink and gold geometric shapes.
      Worktops are lined with glazed, blush-pink tiles.

      Child Studio looks to worker’s cafes for pink interiors of London’s Humble Pizza

      These same tiles have been used to clad the side tables and supporting mattress base in one of the apartment’s bedrooms.
      In the other bedroom, the mattress is pushed up against a scalloped pink headboard. Textural interest is added throughout by baby-pink lamé soft cushions and faux-fur throws.
      Arched sliding doors can be drawn back to reveal pink-tile bathrooms, complete with pink-frame vanity mirrors and shiny pink shower curtains.

      Bathrooms lie behind arched sliding screens
      Other than a few spherical pendant lights, trailing ivy plants and neon art piece, Patricia Bustos Studio hasn’t incorporated a lot of decoration in the apartment.
      Some elements, like the stepped blocks which display books and other trinkets, are meant to riff off La Muralla Roja – a housing development designed by Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill in 1968, distinguished by its maze of interlocking stairways.
      “[Bofill] creates a mysterious and infinite space with the perfect transformation between 2D and 3D, and with several elements that play with the optical illusion,” added the studio.

      Shiny pink curtains and pink-frame mirrors complete the bathrooms
      Several other architects and designers haven’t shied away from making extensive use of the colour pink – last year, Child Studio covered the interior of a vegan pizza restaurant in London with candy-pink Formica.
      Mar Plus Ask also washed the walls of a cave-like guesthouse in Spain with blush-pink stucco.
      Photography is by JC de Marcos.

      Read more: More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      The Olive Houses are off-grid retreats hidden in Mallorca's mountains

      by

      Craggy boulders jut through walls in these off-grid guesthouses that architecture studio Mar Plus Ask has built in Mallorca, Spain, for creatives in need of a quiet escape.Tucked away high up in Mallorca’s Tramuntana mountains, The Olive Houses are run year-round by Mar Plus Ask as a silent refuge where solo architects, writers and artists can stay free from interruption.

      The pair of houses are enclosed by a dense grove of thousand-year-old olive trees, which at points is interrupted by huge boulders resembling “natural monumental sculptures”.

      Keen to leave this rugged terrain largely untouched, Mar Plus Ask set about designing two modest structures – one that accommodates sleeping quarters, the other cooking facilities – that look like homes in the surrounding landscape.

      “Our first reaction was that only if we could come up with something that would add something in a respectful and beautiful way, would we ever consider building,” explained the studio, which is led by Mar Vicens and Ask Anker Aistrup.
      “However, it was calming that the functions we were looking to build wouldn’t be much different than those of the existing structures found in the area.”

      One of the houses is partially embedded into an existing stone terrace, which the studio hopes will help the structure keep cool during the warm summer months.
      A sliding teakwood door can be pushed back to reveal a grand arched entrance. Inside, the house has a series of smooth, sloping surfaces similar to those seen within a cave.
      The walls, floor and ceiling have been exclusively rendered in blush-pink stucco, as the studio felt the colour was complementary to the pale green shade seen on the underside of an olive tree leaf.

      A corner of the house has been built around a craggy boulder that the studio left in situ, illuminated by a skylight directly above.
      “To us, the stone became a piece of art – suddenly the house was more about sculpting its backdrop and being its lightbox,” explained the studio.

      Tiny camping pods by Andrea Zittel serve as a creative refuge in the California desert

      Just beside the boulder, an overhead shower has been fitted, while a single bed lies on the other side of the house. Outside there’s also a large sink, the basin of which is formed from rock.

      Mar Plus Ask created the second house by renovating a dilapidated shed on site that was once used to store tools.
      Surfaces throughout are instead covered in deep-purple stucco, a hue that the studio thought was more akin to the dark, glossy topside of an olive leaf.

      The structure was initially deemed too narrow to hold cooking facilities but the studio ended up carving a wide opening into one of its 60-centimetre-thick walls, which is able to accommodate a chunky prep counter and a sink.
      Guests will also have access to two gas burners and a wood-fire oven – water, like that used to service the shower and sink in the first house, is sourced from a nearby spring. This house also includes a toilet.

      Mar Plus Ask was established in 2015 and works between offices in Copenhagen, Berlin, Mallorca and Valencia.
      The studio’s Olive Houses project isn’t the only place where creatives can go to clear their heads. Back in 2016, Andrea Zittel launched Wagon Station Encampment – a campsite near Joshua Tree Park, California, where artists and writers are allowed to play out their “desert fantasy”.
      The site includes 10 sleeping pods, a communal outdoor kitchen and open-air showers.
      Photography is by Piet Albert Goethals.

      Read more: More

    • 88 Shares119 Views

      Two-storey bookshelf rises inside renovated Madrid house

      by

      Spanish architecture firm Zooco Estudio has covered the walls of this Madrid residence with bookshelves that span two levels.House 6 is a detached single-family home located in northern Madrid. Local studio Zooco Estudio overhauled the residence contrasting white interiors with pale wood cabinetry and herringbone patterned flooring.

      The centrepiece of the design is a white shelving unit that extends two floors and wraps around the walls of the house’s living room and dining area.

      On the lower level, the volume comprises dozens of rectangular cases for storing books, movies and electronics, including a mounted television. A series of narrow cubbies also occupy the space between a glass dining table and entryway creating storage for hanging apparel.

      “As a unifying element, a shelf rises colonising both living and lobby spaces,” the studio said. “This way we integrate aesthetic and functionality in one single element.”
      The shelves continue on the upper level with a rectangular volume along a hallway. Pendant light fixtures hang from the ceiling to illuminate the floor below.

      In the kitchen, pale oak fronts the cabinetry and details the base of a white kitchen island. White tiles form the splashback behind the sink and cover the rectangular range hood hanging above the island.

      Beta Ø Architects completes overhaul of X House in Madrid

      A spiral staircase with black metal steps is carved into the wall to create a sculptural focal point within the space.

      Upstairs the bedroom and bathrooms are concealed by a wall of slender wooden slats lacquered white. The narrow strips separate the master bedroom from the bathroom. A section of the millwork is intentionally left open to expose the shower.

      “A continuous view was required so you can see through the slats to the shower,” the studio added. “However, the private areas of the bathroom are completely hidden.”
      In the bathroom the studio has covered the walls and floors with white tiles and blue grouting. A geometric counter clad with blue tiles snakes across the ground and up the wall to form a storage closet in the space.

      Zooco Estudio is an architecture firm with offices in Madrid and Santander founded by Miguel Crespo Picot, Javier Guzmán Benito and Sixto Martín Martínez. The studio has also completed an art centre in Verín that comprises several granite buildings and a child play area built out of wood for a co-working office in Santa Monica, California.

      Other renovation projects in Madrid include a house with a permeable metal sculpture designed by Beta Ø Architects and an apartment by Lucas y Hernández Gil with sliding wall partitions.
      Photography is by Imagen Subliminal.
      Project credits:
      Project manager: Miguel Crespo Picot, Javier Guzmán Benito, Sixto Martín MartínezConstruction: Nimbo Proyectos S LLighting: Zooco EstudioFurniture design: Zooco Estudio

      Read more: More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      Forte Forte fashion boutique in Madrid is filled with shapely details

      by

      A pale geometric relief wall offsets brass and green-marble decor details in this Madrid boutique designed by creative duo Giada Forte and Robert Vattilana.Madrid’s Forte Forte store occupies a corner plot in Salamanca – a glamorous district of the city known for its boulevards lined with luxury fashion boutiques and upscale restaurants.

      It was designed by the brand’s co-founder, Giada Forte and her partner, art director Robert Vattilana.

      The pair devised opulent interiors for Forte Forte’s London, Milan, Tokyo and Paris stores, but wanted the new Madrid branch to have a more restrained aesthetic that still offered moments of “poetry and feminine delicacy”.

      “[The store] is charged with a sensual energy polarized on the offset of masculine and feminine, curves and angles, geometry and sentiment,” Forte and Vattilana explained.
      “There’s a recognizable grammar of surfaces, treatments, colors uniting the different spaces that’s born from our creative dialogue, but the narration takes on a different metric and tone.”

      An off-white relief wall that features a haphazard array of raised geometric shapes runs down one side of Forte Forte’s ground level.
      A structural column in the store has been given a similarly geometric form. It extends up through a circular opening in the ceiling that has been backlit to look as if natural light is beaming through from the outdoors.

      At the centre of the store is a low-lying semicircular bench perched on a mottled pink rug. The flooring that runs underneath has been inlaid with mismatch cuts of grooved and plain stone, as well as tiny triangles made from emerald-green Iranian marble.
      The same veiny marble has been used to make the store’s door handle and its rounded service counter.
      Directly above the counter, thin brass stems have been loosely arranged in a grid-like formation to form a hanging sculpture. It supports a handful of warped glass orbs.

      Heavy gold velvet curtains help screen-off the cylindrical changing booth that dominates the rear corner of the store.
      Brass doors punctuated by small portholes can be pulled back to grant access to the inside of the booth, where teal-blue carpet has been fitted to match the blue underside of the curtains.

      Fashion sits alongside found objects at the Forte Forte boutique in Milan

      Garments are hung from spindly brass rails, while accessories and lifestyle items are presented on a set of brass shelves held up by a pole that’s been made to resemble an oversized bolt.

      A curving blush-pink staircase leads up to the store’s second floor. Forte and Vattilana have used the expansive landing that sits between the staircase’s two flights of steps as an additional display area.
      It’s dressed with a huge leafy plant, another brass clothes rail and an organically-shaped mirror.

      Forte Forte opened its first brick-and-mortar store in 2018 – until then, the brand’s clothing could exclusively be purchased online.
      The inaugural store in Milan has been decorated with a curious array of found objects including a nude sketch, a lump of coral and a bust of the goddess Venus that came from an old French foundry.

      Read more: More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      Cabinette co-working space in Valencia plays off Jacques Tati's film Playtime

      by

      The 1960s film Playtime by renowned French director Jacques Tati set the tone for this whimsical co-working office that Masquespacio has designed in Valencia.Cabinette is a co-working space for creatives set inside a mixed-use building in Valencia’s La Fuensanta neighbourhood.

      It takes over a ground-floor unit that was originally fit-out to serve as an apartment. Leaving the existing bathroom facilities in place, interiors studio Masquespacio reconfigured the rest of the floor plan to accommodate a series of work areas for Cabinette’s members.

      The studio’s founders, Christophe Penasse and Ana Milena Hernández Palacios, wanted to give the 200-square-metre space a retrofuturist aesthetic that’s attractive to millennials but also makes “a clear wink to the past”.

      A particular point of reference was Playtime – a 1967 comedy film directed by Jaques Tati that follows character Monsieur Hulot as he navigates a gadget-filled version of future Paris.
      It’s revered for its satirical take on modern life and was also included in Dezeen’s list of 10 films with amazing architecture.

      Masquespacio creates colour-clashing interior for phone-repair shop in Valencia

      “We once visited a museum installation here in Valencia where they showcased some fragments of the movie, especially a moment where the leading actor goes to a meeting,” Penasse told Dezeen.

      In the film, when Hulot arrives at the meeting, he enters a huge office where each employee’s desk is closed in by a cabinet-lined box – a feature which inspired Cabinette’s name.
      Penasse and Palacious have similarly divided desks in the co-working space, but instead of individual boxes have erected low-lying partitions.
      As with the interior of the boxes in Playtime, the desks and chairs in Cabinette are a pastel green-blue colour.

      The same colour features across the floor, as well as the counter, tiled splashback and a couple of cupboards in the kitchen, which sits in the corner of the room.
      Walls and part of the floor here are painted chocolate-brown, complementing the steel stools from Masquespacio’s Déjà-Vu collection that appear beside the counter. They each feature tiers of brown, ochre and blue fringing.
      Another wall in Cabinette is clad in mirrored panels, while one on the far side of the office is a bright lilac hue. It’s decorated with various graphic-print canvases and rows of illuminated tube lights.

      A set of stairs leads up to a mezzanine where there are a pair of intimate meeting rooms that members can use for group work or take private phone calls.
      They’re screened off by the same shiny silver curtains that hang in front of the full-height windows at ground level that look through to an outdoor terrace.

      There is also a more formal boardroom that features deep-purple surfaces. The central lacquered-wood table is surrounded by Masquespacio’s gold-framed Arco chairs, which are upholstered in burnt-orange velvet.
      The studio’s eye-shaped Wink lights are also mounted on the wall.

      Masquespacio was established in 2010 by Penasse and Ana Milena Hernández Palacios. The studio has applied its colourful aesthetic to a number of projects.
      These include a phone repair shop that features a clashing mix of salmon-pink and turquoise surfaces, and a tropical green and maroon restaurant that offers Brazilian-Japanese cuisine.
      Photography is by Luis Beltran.

      Read more: More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      Casa Grande Hotel in Spain occupies 18th-century stone manor house

      by

      Grey stone walls and jet-black joinery meet to form the monochromatic interiors of this boutique hotel in northern Spain designed by Francesc Rifé Studio.Casa Grande Hotel is situated in Granon, a tiny village in Spain’s La Rioja region that’s populated by just a few hundred people.
      The hotel’s owners – a couple with two daughters – moved to the area from a busy tourist town on Spain’s Costa Brava, having grown tired of their hectic lifestyles.

      They had the idea to open Casa Grande Hotel when they came across a vacant 18th-century manor house. Barcelona-based Francesc Rifé Studio was tasked with creating the hotel’s 11 intimate guest rooms and communal spaces.

      The studio decided to work with a “sober” palette of colours and materials that would “coexist with the story of the building peacefully” and draw attention to its historic features.

      “I think dark tones are always quieter and calmer than light colours and this project is asking to pause and breathe,” Francesc Rifé told Dezeen. “The new materials had to offer this aesthetic vision.”
      “There is nothing more gratifying and beautiful than deconstructing a forgotten building to recover the history that underlies it.”

      One of the building’s key historic features is its ashlar walls – a style of masonry that uses large, square-cut stones.
      These walls have been left exposed throughout Casa Grande Hotel’s ground-floor interior, freshened up with a coat of light-grey paint.
      “This technique also aims to provide a certain luminosity to rooms where the thickness of the walls often does not help the entry of natural light,” the studio explained.

      In the hotel’s restaurant, which serves dishes inspired by La Rioja’s regional cuisine, the brick walls have been paired with natural oak floors. Wooden dining tables and chairs have been dotted across the room.
      Nearby is a moody drinks area, where almost every surface – including the bar counter – has been lined with jet-black poplar wood. One wall is punctuated with a dramatically backlit wine cabinet.

      Stone surfaces continue to appear in the five bedrooms on the hotel’s first floor, but sit alongside brick and concrete walls which the studio had to introduce during the restoration works on the building.
      Black poplar wood has also been used again to create headboards and wardrobes.

      Some of the rooms come with in-built window desks that overlook the tiled roof of San Juan Bautista church, which is located directly next to the hotel.
      The six suite-style rooms on the hotel’s second floor each come with their own small lounge area, and feature loft-like ceilings with exposed beams.

      Francesc Rifé Studio also updated the exterior of Casa Grande Hotel, describing it as “perhaps the most monumental part of the project”.

      Blackened wood appears throughout R Apartment by Francesc Rifé Studio

      Windows that were “chaotically” arranged across one elevation of the building have been left in place but updated with graphic black-iron frames.

      An iron fence wraps around the lower half of the building, merging into a huge pivoting door that opens onto the Casa Grade Hotel’s outdoor terrace.
      “This element has a double meaning,” said the studio. “On the one hand, it reinforces the aesthetic narrative of the metal that has been used to design the windows and balconies, but at the same time, it hides different lateral openings that house machinery and electrical wiring.”

      Dark tones pervade several of Francesc Rifé Studio’s projects. Earlier this year, the studio completed a house in Mexico City that features slate-grey walls and huge black-aluminium shutters.
      Back in 2019, the studio also inserted a series of blackened wood partitions in a Valencian apartment.
      Photography is by David Zarzoso.

      Read more: More