Conde Duque is a cheerful, bohemian, carefree district in the heart of Madrid, Spain, with emerging new commercial activity in the form of shops with a modern yet vintage air. An apartment in one of the district’s narrow streets was refurbished throughout by interior design studio Sierra + De La Higuera, using tiles by Wow Design.
The owners of the 1,600-square-foot apartment are a well-travelled young couple, he from Galicia and she from Mexico. They wanted to stamp the hallmark of their roots on their new home. As the interior designers stated, “This project is the outcome of a quest to find color in Madrid, a characteristic inspired by the travels and origins of the apartment’s owners.”
The interior design studio was hired to revamp the whole apartment, changing its layout completely. Originally, it consisted of a series of rooms which flanked a long windowless corridor. The main aim of the design project was to create a more open-plan layout, with big living spaces, eliminating the corridors and maximizing the amount of natural light.
Expressive colors to bring a little piece of Mexico to Madrid
The interior designers opted for vibrant colors, such as bright yellows, greens, blues and reds, in order to create a cheerful atmosphere while also making a powerful impact. For this purpose, they chose small-format tiles by Wow Design from the Bejmat collection in different colors and sizes, used throughout the whole apartment.
“We opted for tiles because ceramic is a highly expressive, artisanal material, available in a wide variety of colors, allowing us to bring a little piece of Mexico to Madrid through color,” the interior designers told us.
The design of the entrance hall revolved around arch-shaped wood panels, used to separate two different parts of the house. One part is the kitchen-diner, inspired by things typical of Mexico and clad in emerald green tiles. The other part is made up of the terraces and living room, inspired by Singapore. White and yellow tiles were used in the latter, where they make even more of an impression when exposed to direct sunlight.
In some places, the colors of the tiles were also used on other furniture to create a sense of unity. For instance, the green in the kitchen ties in with the upholstery of the same color used on the living room couch. In this last room and in the two bathrooms, finished off in red and blue respectively, tiles were used to create striped decorative skirtings which mark off different areas.
