Tasked with producing a painting studio for an artist in rural Mallorca, architect Pau Munar Comas has overhauled a crumbling farmhouse and added a stone-walled extension .
Munar Comas, one particular of the two founders of neighborhood studio Munarq, was asked by artist Dolors Comas to produce a function and exhibition space for her amongst the wheat fields outdoors the tiny town of Pla de na Tesa.
Her main requirements had been for two big spaces – a exhibition gallery and a workshop – as properly as higher ceilings, natural north light, and some places of visual privacy exactly where she can function undisturbed.
“It was a wonderful spot for Dolors, who was moving her studio to look for the tranquility of this new area – air, vegetation and silence,” explained Munar Comas.
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The crew chose to preserve and extend the present construction, but to rework the interior to create much more light and visibility. The old constructing was in a bad situation and was overgrown with plants, and many repairs had to be manufactured to make it usable again.
Firstly, the walls of the building were stripped back to their construction materials – a combine of earth and straw that had previously been concealed behind layers of render.
An extension was then additional to develop an L-shaped program with a complete area of 230 square metres. The new wing features dry stone walls, created making use of blocks of different shapes and sizes.
Within, a poured concrete floor was additional across both of the building’s two storeys. Inner walls had been re-plastered and painted white, contrasting with the exposed wooden ceiling beams and staircase treads.
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“It was very low-cost for a reform – unpretentious but with design and respect for the area and present development,” said the architect.
A glazed entrance sits at the junction amongst the two blocks, supplying entry to the gallery on one side and the studio on the other. There is also a second entrance at the end of the extension that permits the artist to deliver fresh air through the developing.
A courtyard is framed among the two wings. Its central characteristic is a well, which can be utilised to sustain the surrounding garden, such as a prickly pear plant at the site’s entrance.
Named Can Valls, the venture was finished this yr. Other just lately unveiled artist’s studios incorporate a concrete structure half-submerged in a cliffside backyard on the Chilean coastline, and a zinc-armoured studio above a brook in Scotland.
Photography is by Gonçal Garcia.
Ground floor plan 
Part Dezeen
