Tour a Reimagined 485-Square-Foot Madrid Studio Apartment

An Architect Reimagined Her 485-Square-Foot Studio with a Lofted Steel Bedroom

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“What initially drew me to the space was its raw potential,” begins architect Mariana de Delás, owner of Mariana de Delás Architecture studio, of this small 485-square-foot studio apartment in Madrid’s Embajadores neighborhood she purchased seven years ago.

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Credit: Sandra Regaldo

The green color in the home is JOTUL's "Exotic Green." The mobile over the dining table is from Solito, and the lighting in the kitchen is from Disssseny.

“The foot print was small, just 6 x 4 meters, but it had a big balcony towards the street and a nice back window to an open courtyard. In Madrid two nice windows is a rare find for such a tiny apartment,” Mariana writes.

Credit: Sandra Regaldo

Mariana admits that the roof insulation "is provisional — temporary cork panels — because the house is designed to keep growing. It is not the best, but works for now. This is only the first phase of a project intended to grow vertically into three stories once permits allow. The current architecture already anticipates future expansion, treating the house as a living structure rather than a finished object."

There was also a false ceiling, so she couldn’t be sure how tall the actual ceiling was. But in a satellite view of the building, which was built around 1945, she saw that the roof was pitched. She had a hunch there was hidden space above the false ceiling she could use.

Credit: Sandra Regaldo

"Nearly all furniture and architectural elements were designed and self-built by artisans, friends, or me using welded steel bars, experimenting with off-cuts and material efficiency," Mariana writes. Some of her proudest details are the bookshelves, the plexiglass lamp table, and the green kitchen handles.

When she got the keys to the space, one of the first things she did was poke a hole in the false ceiling to see if there would be room for a loft. Spoiler alert: There was! That meant she’d be able to free up the small apartment’s ground floor to “host the main communal functions” like the kitchen, entry, bathroom, and living room.

Credit: Sandra Regaldo

Perhaps the proudest DIY in the space is the yellow wall-mounted fan, which is a prototype Mariana and her colleague Marcos Duffo are "willing to develop industrially, we call it the Flexo Fan." The sofa bed in the living room is from IKEA.

The star of the space — and something that added a ton of function to the studio — is the “lightweight, lifted metal gangway structure that accommodates a tucked-in bedroom, storage, and a small study overlooking the main space,” Mariana writes.

Credit: Sandra Regaldo

“The house is deeply inspired by ‘The Baron in the Trees’ by Italo Calvino, and by the idea of inhabiting space vertically, lightly, and poetically — living among ‘branches,’ light, and air,” she explains.

This tour’s responses and photos were edited for length/size and clarity.
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