The connection and rehabilitation of an old bar, known as La Pata, and the dwelling located on the floor immediately above, give rise to four tourist apartmets: LAPATA Suites. Bulnes + Elliott Arquitectos design a “made-to-measure” rehabilitation, where global solutions are not imposed, but where each space dictates its own rules of the game.
Located in the historic centre of Trujillo (Cáceres), both the bar and the dwelling – initially disconnected – are part of the same residential building, sharing the common areas with other dwellings.
In view of this, the first action was to unify and separate the access and connect both floors.
The ground floor is designated as the only and main access, independent from the rest of the flats, and a new staircase is incorporated in the central room. In this way, the number of server spaces is reduced to a minimum, optimising the surface area available for the different tourist apartments.
The distribution of the different apartments is given by the existing stone walls. Each of the rooms of the apartments (living room-kitchen or bedrooms) corresponds to those delimited by the structural walls.Far from similar rooms, these walls delimit spaces with different characteristics: rooms with different proportions, different floor slabs (one of the rooms has vaults initially hidden), etc.
Therefore, the response to each of these spaces will be specific and singular, although without trying to lose the harmony of the whole.
Thus, in three of the apartments, the wet rooms are attached longitudinally to the load-bearing walls. The aim is to concentrate structure and installations as well as to free up the rooms to generate more open spaces. These “additions” to the wall are clearly differentiated by means of different tools.
Among them are the use of color or the introduction of unique elements such as the curve.
This is not the case in apartment four, whose walls enclose two groin vaults. In order to enhance the value of both vaults, the wet core is placed in the center of the room, without reaching the ceiling or touching the walls.
It is thus understood as a device-furniture that allows to organize the apartment without losing the spatiality of the room.
Kitchen, storage, living room or bedroom are organized around this new element where, and repeatedly, color appears as a tool to distinguish the new from the pre-existing.
Likewise, in order to take advantage of the space in the smaller rooms, the interior layout of the bathrooms has been reconceptualized. In two of them, the different sanitary fixtures are separated. In this way, uses that have traditionally been understood together now appear as independent functions. This allows all the cabins (washbasin, toilet and shower) to be used simultaneously.
All this results in a “made-to-measure” rehabilitation, where global solutions are not imposed, but where each space dictates its own rules of the game.
Facts & Credits
Project title LAPATA Suites
Typology Residential, Renovation
Location Trujillo, Cáceres
Architecture Bulnes + Elliott Arquitectos
Architects Pilar Ruiz Bulnes, architect, Jacinto Pérez-Elliott Fernández, architect
Technical architect Jorge Peña Borreguero
Construction company Construcciones Barquilla S.L.
Project Year 2025
Surface 235,85 m2
Program Tourist apartments
Photography Juanca Lagares
Text provided by the architects
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