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Compact apartment opens up with restored tiled floors in Barcelona renovation

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Walls and parts of the ceiling were knocked down, too

When Spanish architect Oriol Garcia first encountered a derelict apartment tucked into the attic of a three-story building in Barcelona, he knew that he needed to do something drastic in order to revive it.

So he decided to knock down some walls to let light infiltrate the home and installed curtains and bookshelves instead. He also tore down a false ceiling, exposing a high, beamed ceiling over head. In order to further differentiate areas within the compact apartment, Garcia restored the terracotta-colored tiles in the step-down sunroom and the patterned tiles everywhere else, thereby establishing two different flooring materials.

These measures meant that he also had to come up with a way to clear a path through the center of the Sant Andreu apartment in order to take advantage of the newly unencumbered space, so he relegated all fixed components—kitchen, bathroom, and closets—to the outer walls. The result is a bright and flowing loft-like dwelling that belies its only-484-square-footage. Head on over to Dezeen for more.