H3O architects renovates historic Barcelona

Barcelona-based H3O architects has renovated a 19th-century house in the city's Gracia neighbourhood. The project preserved heritage elements while introducing quirky new details, including hidden windows.

Casa Plató is a formerly rural house that was transformed into a grand residence in the late 19th century. The current owner's ancestors added a tower, galleries, mouldings and balustrades. The house, which has featured in numerous period film productions, required restoration but needed to retain the authenticity of its interiors and gardens.

A dialogue with the past

The architects analysed films shot at the property to help shape their preservation strategy. Their work focused on the ground floor and adjacent outdoor areas. Key heritage elements, including mosaic floors, radiators, mouldings and the original colour palette, were carefully restored.

"We greatly enjoyed thinking about the project as a dialogue or continuation with the pre-existing building, but from absolute respect and with playful and intelligent gestures," the studio told Dezeen. The team stated they did not want an intervention based on contrast, but rather an improvement through understanding what already existed.

Updated kitchen and new terrace

The existing kitchen was subtly updated by enlarging the space. New elements were introduced to complement the original wooden cabinetry and marble sink. Dark tiles echo the previous floor. A white geometric cooker hood, a wooden shelf and a wavy wooden table were added for practicality.

A new terrace adjoining the kitchen strengthens the link between inside and outside. Deep-blue tiles on the steps reference those found in the existing courtyard garden.

A new modernist bathroom

While the original bathroom was entirely preserved, a new bathroom was added. It features clean lines and a minimalist palette that references the house's modernist style. A circular shower enclosed by a matching curtain forms the room's centrepiece.

The space is finished with white mosaic tiles, a dark floor, and stainless-steel washbasins with a marble countertop. Rounded shapes, including a circular mirror, curved taps and orb-shaped wall lamps, evoke forms found in modernist architecture.

"Modernism recovered these geometries that are marine, part of nature and more organic," explained the architects.

Playful interventions and preservation

Playful details include a porthole-like pivoting window in one bedroom. "We found it playful to introduce these forms in elements such as the pivoting circular window, which works like an eye that opens and closes, allowing visual connections between rooms," they said.

The house's most distinctive heritage spaces, like the dining room with its decorative wallpaper, plaster mouldings, tiled floor and cast-iron radiators, were preserved largely as found. Existing fixtures were repurposed; salvaged marble surfaces were reused in the kitchen and doors were carefully relocated.

Previously dark circulation spaces at the centre of the floor plan were brightened by three strategically placed windows. One is concealed behind a painting. The generously sized garden was preserved as one of the few remaining green spaces in the densifying neighbourhood, providing a link to the house's rural roots.

H3O was founded in 2017 by Adrià Orriols, Joan Gener and Miquel Ruiz. The photography is by Simone Marcolin.