Reforma Departamento MN
Apartment renovation in a 1950s building in Providencia
This commission came from a young couple of professionals who had recently acquired a 1950s apartment on a silent, tree lined side street just a few meters off Avenida Providencia, the main thoroughfare of the capital. Accustomed to the urban lifestyle they had had in a long stay in New York, they chose the apartment because the neighbourhood allowed them to do much of their lives in a pedestrian way.
The property condensed a series of interventions poorly executed throughout its life, so the first action was to release it from all modifications and non-structural elements, a tabula rasa operation that would reveal for what was the essential to conserve. From this scenario both clients and architects agreed on the need to re think the reception rooms towards a more open-plan arrangement highlighting the great spatiality and potential light that could be achieved. At the same time, this idea met the desire of the clients to have an open kitchen, suitable to receive guests and cook at the same time.
The new arrangement proposal eliminates the existing divisions between entrance hall, kitchen, living room and dining room; re-establishes the original position of the kitchen, which had been modified by the previous owners and defines a new laundry room adjacent to the entrance hall, concentrating services around the central light wells, thereby simplifying the shape and expanding the original entrance hall.
Among all the now connected rooms and occupying the complete width of the apartment, a long built-in shelving system protects the limits of the programs, works as support for decoration and storage and also give character to the rooms with the objects of everyday use that it will display. In the kitchen, a black prism island between the dining room and the kitchen completes the surface for cooking and mediate between both programs in a fluent way.
The intervention seeks to simplify the presence of niches, false walls and beams, by distributing built-in furniture and new partitions which are more consistent with the rooms shapes and the structure, defining spatial clarity in all the rooms. Likewise, there are two new windows coinciding with the street façade of the building. In the living room, a large window is placed inside an existing niche, which allows a wider and cleaner view of a tree outside. In the dining room, the window retracts to an existing structural beam that delimited an underutilized interior space, transforming it into a new balcony.
The material and colour palette remains simple, highlighting the restored parquet floors and the large volume of space. The built-in furniture in grey tones, sets a neutral base for the innumerable objects and uses that the apartment will support.
In the rest of the apartment, plaster cornices have been matched, skirting and bathroom fixtures have been replaced; walls and ceilings have been restored and electrical and sanitary systems have been replaced updating the entire property.
