a dining table is seen behind a living room, all atop a geometric tile floor
Nova Luce lighting gathers above a Nordikthink dining table with Vitra chairs, between floor lamps by Artemide and Diesel Foscarini; in the living area, the armchairs are by Folke Ohlsson and the table by B&B Italia.

Cometa Architects Opens All the Right Doors for a Barcelona Apartment

Sometimes a door isn’t just a threshold but a window. Or at least, that’s what Barcelona-based Cometa Architects proposed when renovating a 850-square-foot apartment on a prominent street in the Modernista heart of the city.

Their clients, a family of four, had “very opposite opinions and ideas,” explains firm founder Faidra Matziaraki. “One of them is very fond of the contemporary and minimal. The other was very keen to maintain the traditional ornaments,” including the apartment’s elaborate molding and jaw-dropping floor tile. “Our ideas,” she says, had to be “almost acrobats between these two design worlds.”

Luckily, the clients agreed on two primary principals. First, they wanted light. “It’s a challenge in most of our interior projects in Barcelona,” says Matziaraki. “The openings are often very small and most of them face toward the interior patios, these narrow vertical voids between the buildings.” The second request was more universal. “Post-pandemic, our clients are looking for brighter spaces. But they also wish for privacy, working zones, bigger bathrooms that can accommodate luxurious moments. So, light and space and but also clever layouts.”

a trio of semi-transparent doors open into three separate rooms
Full-height, semi-transparent doors connect the salon to the private rooms.

The key to all this acrobatic choreography? The door. The team installed a quiet series of elegant doors along the entrance corridor. They also conceived a trio of Art Deco-inspired thresholds that compliment the highly-patterned original tile floors, which they restored piece by piece, while carving out corridors for a home office and a grand kitchen. Further back, a double-height steel structure clad in wood panels creates a bedroom and playroom for the kids. A full-height set of doors announces the primary quarter, where a walk-in wardrobe opens to a en-suite bathroom with wet and dry areas defined by custom-made fluted glass screens which catch the ample natural light flooding the bright primary bedroom.

“Through the consecutive use of full-height, semi-transparent doors,” Matziaraki concludes, “we have managed to create spaces within bigger spaces, with uses and functions for people together and separately, all visually connected. It permits the light to travel.” A clever layout, indeed.

a hallway with a light wood floor and white walls
A ‘loggia’ corridor with custom doors leads to the kitchen.
a man and woman sit at kitchen island in a navy blue room
Nova Luce custom pendants illuminate the kitchen’s Blanco sink, Guglielmi faucet, and cabinets by Arredo3.
a dining table is seen behind a living room, all atop a geometric tile floor
Nova Luce lighting gathers above a Nordicthink dining table with Vitra chairs, between floor lamps by Artemide and Diesel Foscarini; in the living area, the armchairs are by Folke Ohlsson and the table by B&B Italia.
a modern living room with graphic tile floor and a grey sofa
Ligne Roset made the living area sofas, while the console is by Arredo3.
a private home office with cube selves above the desk
A private office behind closed doors was the client’s most important request.
the edge of a round mirror is seen behind a modern thin light fixture
The bathroom is clad in Harmony Inspire Peronda tile, with an Uraldi mirror and Nova Luce light.
gold shower fixtures against black tiles
Harmony Inspire Peronda tiles also clad the shower, with fixtures by Zambelis.

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