Refurbishment of a graphic studio in a former textile warehouse

Refurbishment of a graphic studio in a former textile warehouse

The new graphic designers’ offices are in a ground floor premises in the centre of Barcelona, where a textile workshop was previously located.

The premises has two distinct spaces. The first is the interior entrance from the street: long, narrow and dark, leading to a second main warehouse area of 20x20 metres and almost 5 metres high, which is supported by nine cast iron columns. It has overhead light that comes in through skylights, as well as the natural light from an interior patio.

The programme of action required workspaces for graphic designers (work tables, filing cabinets, cupboards of all kinds, good lighting, flexibility, etc.), closed offices, a large meeting room, other smaller rooms and a photographic laboratory.

The solution consists of grouping all the main activities in the warehouse and leaving the entrance for the reception, services and small variable meeting rooms, as well as a large longitudinal cabinet located throughout the entire space.

A loft has been built on one side of the warehouse that contains some offices, the photographic laboratory and the meeting room, accessed by means of a moving staircase.

Tables that are more like small rooms as the furniture has been designed as mobile elements on wheels (drawing tables with built-in screens that create their own work space, chairs, shelves, filing cabinets, cupboard, etc.) that allow the space to be used in a multitude of combinations, adapting to any change and respecting the privacy of work areas.

The materials used are simple painted boards, sisal carpet to muffle sounds, helioscreen to blur the light, metallic ceiling to pass the installations and to incorporate a system of randomly placed lights. Cellular polycarbonate not to deprive the interior of light, etched metal sheet for the staircase and perforated for the false ceiling of the entrance area, in addition to small metal parts such as counterweights, pulleys, wheels, hinges, magnets, etc.

All of these elements facilitate turning, folding, movement, magnetism and tension. Folds and turns in the background which belong to the same condition that causes states of indetermination, such as Duchamp's puns: ANEMIC-CINEMA, INCESTICIDE-INCESTICIDE with numerous meanings.