110 Rooms: Flexible apartments in Barcelona. Photo / supplied
110 Rooms: Flexible apartments in Barcelona. Photo / supplied
Opinion by Simon Wilson
Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues. He joined the Herald in 2018.
How many rooms would you like in your apartment? Three? Four? How about two now, because money's tight, but growing to three, five or even 10 as life unfolds? Change over time, without your having to leave the building or do any structural renovations.
Maio Architects in Barcelona has designeda flexible apartment building it calls 110 Rooms, with a simplicity inspired by older buildings in the area. Merely by closing off some doorways and opening others, the size of every apartment can be modified.
The building has five upper storeys. Each of them, at the moment, has four apartments containing five rooms of almost identical size. A kitchen occupies the central room of each apartment, as the heart of the home, but the plumbing allows it to be moved to another room if preferred. There are no corridors: each room opens on to others through wide openings that can be closed with sliding doors.
The view from an entry room through the kitchen to a living room. Photo / supplied
Two bathrooms in each five-room apartment provide the ingenious key to making the whole thing work. Both are half the size of a normal room, placed on each side of the kitchen. This means the openings between rooms are offset, rather than being in a row. You can see from one to another and through to the next, but on an angle. Architects call this a staggered enfilade.
This year, a bedroom. Next year, maybe it becomes another living room... flexible living at 110 Rooms in Barcelona. Photo / supplied
Floor plan shows 4 apartments with 5 rooms each including kitchen in the middle, and 2 bathrooms. A "staggered enfilade" allows a view from the entry through 3 rooms to the balcony. Image / supplied
Each floor has a central "patio" with lift and stairs and no roof: an aid to natural ventilation. On the ground floor there are two more apartments and access to a communal back garden.
The layout means that every apartment configuration from two rooms to 10 allows each one to have at least one bathroom and a kitchen. All you need to do, to expand or contract your home, is come to an agreement with your neighbour about who will own which rooms and then you just fill in, or open up, the relevant doorways.
110 Rooms is in an historic part of the city, where it's common to find buildings with similar-sized rooms whose function has changed over time. And it's designed to blend in. Wooden-framed french doors with traditional wooden shutters open on to small balconies. The exterior has a modern ceramic layer for thermal efficiency but is finished in a traditional patterned lime stucco.
"Zero invention, pure reproduction," say the architects. "The facade represents, through its pattern, the memory of the area's old inhabitants." Not flashy, just beautiful.
