Located in Madrid, Juan Francisco Casas Studio by Positive Livings is an 80 m² atelier conceived as a porous threshold between artistic production and urban life. Drawing on the Japanese concept of engawa and the Mediterranean ritual of taking chairs into the street, the project turns its cobalt-blue, Portuguese-style tiled façade into a social interface, inviting passers-by to pause, look in and engage. Inside, an open-plan workspace is articulated through a palette inspired by Casas’ collaboration with BIC: white establishes the blank canvas, while blue and orange define the supporting spaces.
Juan Francisco Casas is known for his large-scale, photorealistic drawings made with blue BIC ballpoint pens, transforming everyday and intimate photographs into meticulously rendered images. His practice places the ordinary at the centre of his work, using a familiar, everyday medium to explore representation, intimacy and the act of looking. This relationship with the everyday becomes a starting point for the design of his studio, where Positive Livings translate the artist’s practice into a space that opens onto street life.
Positive Livings creates the Juan Francisco Casas Studio around the idea of the intermediate space, turning the studio’s façade into the project’s defining architectural element.
The intervention gives the interior a presence on the street and introduces a moment of pause into the everyday urban experience.
The idea draws on the Japanese engawa, an intermediate architectural zone traditionally positioned between a building’s interior and its surrounding landscape.
Neither entirely inside nor outside, this space allows different degrees of encounter, privacy and interaction.
Positive Livings reinterpret this principle within a contemporary Madrid context, combining it with the familiar Mediterranean custom of taking chairs outside and gathering with neighbours in the evening.
The result is a space where architecture encourages informal encounters without becoming conventional public space.
The façade establishes this connection through a distinctive Portuguese-inspired composition.
Its surface is covered entirely in 10 × 10 cm cobalt-blue tiles, whose glazed finish produces changing reflections as people and light move along the street. Large windows further dissolve the separation between inside and outside, offering views into the artist’s workspace while allowing the activity of the studio to become part of the urban scene.
Surrounded by large residential buildings, the studio has no other direct relationship with the exterior. Beyond the façade, the plan extends inward and becomes completely enclosed, making the entrance the only point of contact between the building and its surroundings. The intervention therefore concentrates its architectural expression at this critical edge and the façade becomes the project itself.
Inside, the arrangement is deliberately restrained. A large open-plan room provides the principal workspace, accompanied by a small office area, bathroom and storage space. The predominantly white surfaces create a neutral background for the artist’s work, allowing the architecture to function almost as a blank canvas.
Colour becomes the main organising device.
Alongside white, cobalt blue and burnt orange appear throughout the interiors, referencing the BIC pens central to Juan Francisco Casas’ artistic practice. Blue and orange are used selectively to distinguish and organise functional elements, while the white surfaces provide continuity and visual calm.
In this project, Positive Livings establish a dialogue between architecture, artistic production and everyday urban life.
The studio is conceived not simply as a container for making art, but as an environment where the artist’s visual language, the character of the street and the social potential of the architectural threshold converge.
Facts & Credits
Project title Juan Francisco Casas Studio
Typology Office, Studio architecture
Location Madrid, Spain
Status Completed, 2025
Area 80 sqm
Architecture Positive Livings
Lead Architects Clara Ulargui Aparicio, Luis Javier Aguilar Benavides
Photography Imagen Subliminal — Miguel de Guzmán & Rocío Romero
This project was submitted to Archisearch through the “Submit a Story” feature, where architects, designers, and creatives are invited to share their work for publication.