Ll731
Ll731 is a minimalist residence located in Barcelona, Spain, designed by Aramé Studio. This 300-square-meter 2024 renovation of Casa Jaume Bach Esteve in Poblenou neighborhood transforms the 1903 Raimon Batlle i Magañas-designed building from two apartments into single-family home with ground-floor workspace and upper-floor living area. The project demonstrates how deep respect for original architecture can coexist with contemporary spatial reimagination through furniture-defined flexible space rather than fixed architectural divisions.
The intervention conceived as continuity of rooms generates flexibility where furniture arrangement defines each area’s use, demonstrating contemporary residential planning approaches prioritizing adaptability over permanent programmatic assignment. This strategy allows spatial reconfiguration responding to changing household needs without requiring architectural modifications, reflecting growing recognition that domestic life patterns evolve over building lifespans.
The new layer added to existing structure through furniture series and elements gives space new meaning while contrasting with pre-existing structure, establishing dialogue between old and new. This approach enriches building identity with contemporary language respecting and transforming place memory, demonstrating how renovation can acknowledge historical fabric while introducing current spatial sensibilities without attempting seamless integration that might obscure temporal distinctions.
The Poblenou neighborhood context, historically industrial district undergoing significant residential and cultural transformation, provides backdrop for renovation addressing Barcelona’s ongoing negotiation between historic preservation and contemporary development pressures. The 1903 construction date places the building within Barcelona’s early twentieth-century expansion period when the neighborhood developed as working-class and industrial zone before recent gentrification and creative industry concentration.