Hasta La Ideas

A room dedicated to ironing is at the centre of a renovated Barcelona apartment with yellow doors and a spinning mirror.

Architect Sergi Pons claims that the owner spends a lot of time ironing, so created a large aperture facing out from the laundry area into an open-plan living and dining room.

The spinning mirror is positioned on a low partition in the bedroom, separating the bed from the yellow doors and screens that conceal the bathroom behind.

The city centre apartment, named An Urban Refuge, also features pine floors and surfaces in each room.

We’ve featured a few projects in recent months with bright yellow walls and details – see our stories about a yellow concrete gymnasium, an apartment with a yellow storage wall and a canteen with a yellow-spotted ceiling.

Photography is by Adrià Goula.

Here’s some more text from Sergi Pons:

An Urban Refuge

This project sets out to alter and improve an apartment situated facing away from the road in a 1980’s building on carrer Casanova, on the left side of the Eixample in Barcelona. In defining the new use of space in accordance with the client’s needs, attention has been given to maximising the entry of daylight and the visual interrelationships between the different parts of the house, each with its own identity.

The aim is to give the occupant a permanent awareness of the entire space from each part of the house. The visual space flows in the same way as does the layout.The heart of the house is the ironing area where the owner spends a lot of time. An effort has been made to freeze this moment of intimacy and to use a large window to frame an undervalued yet daily activity.

Pine is used for the floors and some of the walls, and the colour yellow for the movable objects.The clean, well-defined design is intended to work without ornamentation. The functional objects, such as folding tables, hangers, portable mirrors, etc. give the space life, meaning and a sense of domesticity. These objects are the decor of the space.

Architect: Sergi Pons
Collaborators: Anna Giralt
Situation: Barcelona, Spain
Project year: 2011