Photography by José Hevia.

Appareil has converted a Barcelona warehouse into a co-working office and maker space, on the top floor of a building in Poblenou, the city’s former industrial quarter.

Currently part of the 22@Barcelona – Innovation District’s renewal plan, which was approved in 2000, the area is evolving into a dynamic, vibrant urban district, brimming with knowledge-intensive activities, from both the professional and academic sectors.

The project serves as the studio’s new permanent base, but it is also rented out for both long-term use and one-off events to urban planners, city data analysers, digital makers, and academic research studios for the IAAC and the AA Visiting School.

The refurbishment of this typical warehouse space provides a simple open working space for a group of independent professionals from the architecture world and neighbouring disciplines. It has been designed to propel them in developing their work in a transparent manner, sharing ideas and stimulating potential collaborations.

Besides floating tables, the volume remains deliberately hollow and all functionalities are pushed to two intricate milled-timber multifunctional walls, which house all necessary equipment and can accommodate temporary local working solutions.

All furniture can be integrated into the walls to create a polyvalent space to host cultural activities. Within the residual rectangular open space, the distribution evolves according to activities that change on a daily basis, depending on the people and projects that are present at any given time.

Chairs folded down and hung from the wall help the spaces flexible use.

A simple, functional kitchen and bathroom are located on the periphery, as well as a winter garden that faces the sea. Designed and constructed on site, the refurbishment is a live test for professional interactions in this multi-disciplinary melting pot of a district. It embraces the concentrations of makers, designers, architects, entrepreneurs and various crafts, both those which are manually operated and those which it equips with numerically controlled production methods: a swarming creative hub within a hub.

appareil.org