A Timeless Small Footprint Home, Studio, and Gallery in Lisbon
“When I first saw the space, I fell in love with the beautiful stone arch and the high ceilings”, Lenka Holcnerova, founder of Lisbon-based architectural studio Atelier Holcnerova, told Never Too Small of her recent design, Atelier Belém. To Holcnerova – a self-proclaimed “big admirer of old buildings” – historical features like the ones in this small corner unit near the banks of the Tejo river present one of her favourite architectural puzzles: how to honour centuries-old qualities while adapting them to modern-day standards. “It's remarkable how relatively small changes can allow for the same building to be efficiently and comfortably utilised for centuries”.
Since the time of its construction in the late 18th century, this 50sqm/538sqft ground floor space has seen many uses. A trend that is in no way threatened by Holcnerova’s clever adaptive reuse, which saw the storefront-style unit transformed into an all-in-one home, studio, and gallery for a visual artist. “I wanted to create a space with a multifunctional interior that [united] the living space with a working area”, she told us, adding, “the key was to design interior elements that could fluidly transfer between these functions”. Holcnerova went a little further than that, though, blending together and disguising functions so seamlessly as to sometimes render them imperceptible at first glance, allowing them to “reveal themselves over time”.
More than Meets the Eye
Take your average passer-by, for example. A glance in the large glass doors would offer them what looks to be your average exhibition space with a large glass table in the centre and a raised mezzanine to the rear that looks like little more than a private office area. What is not so readily on view is the kitchenette tucked into the niches of the crisp white walls across from the stately stone arch feature, the storage stowed behind the tall curtain, and what the mezzanine actually holds: a bedroom up top and a bathroom down below.
A few steps up from the public-facing combined living-studio-and-exhibition room is a secluded area where the homeowner can relax and sleep. Depending on the occasion, you might find either a sofa or a bed up here (hint: it’s the same piece of furniture). The custom-made piece has a base that easily slides out to convert it from sit- to sleep-mode in the evening – that is, if you put it away in the first place. To the underside of the raised mezzanine, is the spa-like bathroom, which Holcnerova made room for by lowering the floor in this area. Knowing that this new bathroom would continue to be a semi-public space, used by visitors during exhibitions, she designed it to have two different possible “modes”: personal and work. In "work mode" the tub is hidden by a custom-made cover, making it appear like a counter or surface for displaying objects.
The Need for Functional Hybrid Designs
Atelier Belém models how centuries-old buildings can be adapted for the current day. As housing shortage continues to rise, the need for functional hybrid spaces will continue to grow. The three-in-one home, studio, and exhibition space is an elegant solution of ingenious versatilities, consolidating the public and private facets of the owner's life into a single optimised space.
