Casa Plató
h3o architects, the Barcelona-based architecture studio formed by Adrià Orriols, Joan Gener and Miquel Ruiz, presents its latest residential renovation project: Casa Plató, located in the Gràcia neighbourhood of Barcelona. The project consists of the refurbishment of a unique late-19th-century single-family house that has served as the setting for numerous film productions over the years. The intervention begins from a fundamental tension between preservation and transformation: updating the house to make it inhabitable today while maintaining the character that makes it unique as a cinematic set.
The history of the house dates back to the late nineteenth century, when the owner acquired a former rural house in Gràcia and transformed it by adding a tower, galleries, mouldings and balustrades, turning an austere construction into a residence with a distinguished presence. As the neighbourhood gradually densified and large gardens were replaced by new buildings, this house retained its original green area and preserved its interiors, including furniture, carpets, lamps and mirrors. This distinctive condition has turned it into a space that reflects another time and, for this reason, it has frequently been chosen by the film industry as a setting for productions directed by Carla Simón and Carlos Marques-Marcet, as well as films starring Ángela Molina, Enric Auquer and David Verdaguer.
“The atmosphere of the house allows one to imagine what Gràcia was like many years ago, when it was still a collection of houses with gardens and a village-like character,” explain the architects.
The commission emerged as the house passed from one generation to the next: the new owner wanted to inhabit the house comfortably without erasing the soul that had made it so special for film productions. The studio h3o architects approached the project with the firm conviction that preserving this heritage was essential. The client “explained that other proposals involved demolishing the interiors, something that did not align with his desire to preserve the memory of the place. That is when we began to imagine together a project capable of balancing transformation and permanence.”
“Casa Plató synthesises a double condition: it is both stage and dwelling. A house that keeps a story alive, but that also allows fiction. A house that embraces what has been and what could exist in other cinematic realities,” explain Adrià Orriols, Joan Gener and Miquel Ruiz of h3o architects.
“We greatly enjoyed thinking about the project as a dialogue or continuation with the pre-existing building, but from absolute respect and with playful and intelligent gestures. We did not want to create an intervention based on contrast or rupture, but rather an improvement through understanding what already existed,” add the architects.
The intervention focuses on the ground floor and the adjacent outdoor areas, concentrating on three main strategies: expanding the kitchen, creating a new bathroom, and introducing new openings that bring natural light into the heart of the house. A terrace has also been incorporated to strengthen the relationship with the garden, visually integrated thanks to the continuity of the characteristic blue tiles of the patio. At the same time, a careful restoration of existing heritage elements has been carried out, including hydraulic mosaic floors, historic radiators, mouldings and original colours, all preserved as essential components of the house’s identity.
To define the intervention, the team analysed films shot in the house: “Through these films we were able to observe how the kitchen, corridors and living spaces had been represented, which helped us define an almost surgical intervention capable of respecting both the cinematic and domestic identity of the house.”
The original kitchen has remained almost intact, still preserving the painted wooden furniture and marble sink that testify to its history. The intervention has been precise and careful, enlarging the space and updating only essential elements while maintaining its character. The dark flooring has been replaced with new tiles of the same colour, while a white geometric hood, a wooden shelf and an integrated wooden table have been added to provide warmth and functionality. The original tile cladding and furniture coexist harmoniously with these contemporary additions, creating a domestic space that feels updated yet faithful to its historical essence.
The new bathroom takes inspiration from domestic spaces of the 1930s and the hygienist imagination of the early modern movement. The room is defined by white mosaic tiles, dark flooring and a stainless steel and marble washbasin with undulating shapes. The central element is a circular shower enclosed by a perimeter curtain, transforming the everyday act of showering into an almost theatrical scene. Circular mirrors, curved faucets and period lamps complete a space with an atemporal and distinctly cinematic character.
The undulating forms present in the new bathroom — from the sink to the pivoting circular window — are a conscious reference to Modernist architecture. As the architects explain: “Undulating forms recall Modernist architecture. Modernism recovered these geometries that are marine, part of nature and more organic. We found it playful to introduce these forms in elements such as the pivoting circular window, which works like an eye that opens and closes, allowing visual connections between rooms.”
The heritage areas of the house have been carefully preserved. The dining room, considered the most distinctive and emblematic space of the house, maintains intact elements such as wallpaper, plaster mouldings, hydraulic tiles, carpets, lamps, mirrors and radiators. “A fossilised room that acts as a time capsule, preserving the emotional and aesthetic memory of the house intact,” describe the architects.
A chromatic palette of the original finishes was created so that the new painted rooms could resonate with the colour palette of the films previously shot in the house. Marble pieces were reused in the kitchen, existing doors were relocated without adding new ones, timber was reused to create new windows, and hanging lamps were dismantled and converted into wall lights. The original Modernist-style bathroom has been entirely preserved.
To improve natural light in previously dark areas, three strategically positioned windows were introduced in different walls, one of them disguised as a false painting. “Isn’t it inevitable to think of aristocratic houses where secrets are hidden behind paintings or bookshelves?” the architects remark.
The garden, one of the last green lungs of the neighbourhood, maintains all its magic: the small shelters for geese, the blue ceramic rings, the grotesque-style fountain and outdoor furniture that has remained there for decades. Walking along the street, one would never imagine what lies hidden behind the stone wall and iron gate.
Casa Plató by h3o architects ultimately becomes an exercise in domestic archaeology and surgical precision: preserving coverings, mouldings and details with an almost archaeological gaze while introducing contemporary elements that appear as though they had always been there. A house that keeps its history alive while still allowing fiction.
