BEATES is a project designed by nook architects in collaboration with byn studio and is located in Barcelona, Spain. The architectural refurbishment of this commercial ground floor space was conditioned for the needs of its new use, a design studio and concept store in what had been for the past few decades an archive and educational space.

The commercial space is located on the ground floor of a residential building built in the year 1900 in Barcelona?s Ciutat Vella, the Old Quarter. The building?s entry and central staircase, which is ventilated through an adjacent patio, is accessed directly from a square. This results in a U-shaped ground floor that wraps around the patio and central staircase.

The building?s structure is heterogeneous; the upper floors have wooden beams held by load-bearing walls, the ground floor has metallic beams supported by forged iron columns and the basement has stone and masonry load-bearing walls that transition into wide vaults.
When we first visited the space we were surprised to see that 3 of its large openings to the street had been bricked up, limiting the amount of natural light. The ground floor and basement were both heavily partitioned, mostly be wood and frosted glass dividers and some thin masonry walls. The result was a sequence of small, dark spaces that had been created as they were needed.

The main staircase that gave access to the basement was located by the entry at one of the t...