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Architecture

Wheelchair-Accessible Design Brings Joy to Homeowners

Architects found on Houzz renovate a home to improve a family’s quality of life and lighten up the space

Núria Moreras
Núria MorerasJanuary 12, 2021
Colaboradora en Houzz. Periodista con más de 15 años ligados a la arquitectura y la decoración.
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Celia Mateo and Luis Miguel González, the owners of this apartment in Barcelona, Spain, found themselves at a crossroads. They had to decide whether to revamp their home — which had a layout that didn’t work for them — or move to a new one. They opted to go for a total renovation that gave them what they needed: spaces tailored to Mateo, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease 14 years ago. Mateo says her quality of life “has changed 100%. I have the feeling of being in a new apartment and I feel happier. Sometimes, without realizing it, we say something like, ‘Do you remember when we used to live in Gran Vía? Wait, we are in Gran Vía,’ ” she says with a smile.
GokoStudio
Photos by Jordi Folch

Apartment at Glance

Who lives here: Celia Mateo, Luis Miguel González and the youngest of their children, Mario González, 18.
Location: Eixample district of Barcelona, Spain
Size: 1,399 square feet (130 square meters)
Architects: Bettina Koroluk and Claudio González of GokoStudio

Previously, the space was completely compartmentalized and the living area overlooked an interior light well, making it feeling a bit gloomy. The apartment’s location in the building was an extra challenge: Many of its walls were load-bearing and couldn’t be moved.

The owners found their team of renovation professionals on Houzz. “I searched for people in our area on the professionals tab on the Houzz website. I looked at their photos and ruled out the ones that didn’t suit our taste,” González says. After reading the reviews, they chose Bettina Koroluk and Claudio González, the founders of GokoStudio.
GokoStudio
Koroluk says the owners took several months to make up their minds. “They had doubts that a comprehensive revamp of the apartment would be able to restore functionality and meet their needs,” she explains.

“Without touching any of the load-bearing walls, we redistributed all the spaces so that the day area faces the street and gets all the natural light. We were looking to create a large and fluid space where the family could share their everyday life,” the architect says.
GokoStudio
The large dining table attached to the kitchen island provides a comfortable space for meals while leaving enough room to move around. It can accommodate up to 14 people when extended.
GokoStudio
The kitchen is adjacent to a large pantry area (not pictured).
GokoStudio
The living room, dining room and kitchen are now a single space with lots of natural light.
GokoStudio
Mateo’s office in the corner —visible in the background of this photo — is also bright thanks to several big windows. “I really like digital photography,” she says. “The room that used to be my office was very dark because it only had a window to an interior courtyard. But now I see the trees, the Gran Vía. The view has totally changed.”

The main objective of the renovation — to improve the quality of life for the entire family and especially for Mateo — has been achieved. “I always told [GokoStudio] that the renovation was like a small labor of love for my wife,” González says.

The architects designed practically all the furniture in the house to suit the family. It was made by Inter Armaris.
GokoStudio
GokoStudio and the clients used a Houzz ideabook to collaborate. In it, they kept photographs of architectural solutions and decoration ideas that inspired the home’s minimalist and contemporary interiors.

The plans here show how the layout of the living area changed in the renovation, with the kitchen and study being turned to face the street to capture natural light.
At the top left is the original layout for the public areas; top right is the proposed layout. The line diagram at bottom left shows the load-bearing walls. The large diagram on the right is the final layout.
GokoStudio
Like the entire house, the hall is minimalist, elegant and unobstructed.

Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disease, which means Mateo may need to use a wheelchair at some point. The spaces needed to be wide enough to be wheelchair-accessible.

González notes that one of the basic requests they made to the architects was “to make sure all the flooring is level, even in the bathroom, in order to prevent falls and allow for the use of a wheelchair.”
GokoStudio
The architects used just a few materials for the project. Wood, micro-cement and porcelain were used on all the flooring and finishes throughout the house.

The palette repeats itself in the home. Grays, wood tones and copper details achieve “a harmonious aesthetic that inspires calmness,” the architects say, and González concurs: “The architects have achieved the tranquillity and smooth lines that we wanted for the renovation of the apartment,” he says.
GokoStudio
The couple’s son uses this bathroom, next to the apartment entrance.
GokoStudio
As in the living area, the renovation sought to connect the various zones of the master bedroom as much as possible. There are no doors or physical barriers between the bedroom, walk-in closet and en suite bathroom.
GokoStudio
The original air-conditioning system made the space noisy and not very comfortable. In summer, the owners say, it was sometimes impossible to fall asleep. GokoStudio says it solved these problems with a new system that provided the flat with the “necessary comfort and usability so that all the systems may be managed by a person with reduced mobility.”
GokoStudio
A wall of the walk-in closet doubles as a headboard, in a custom design by GokoStudio.

The lighting is another example of the careful attention to detail in this project. The couple often have different schedules, so the architects installed dimmable LED lights in the lower area of the cabinets and the headboard to gently light the way to the closet and bathroom in the middle of the night. They combined this with spot lighting for reading and dressing. This is augmented further with wall and ceiling lamps for general ambient light.
GokoStudio
Most of the doors are sliding so they’re easy to open.

“It was a stimulating challenge, designing all walkways to have a minimum width of about [3 feet] and a [4-foot] turn radius to accommodate a wheelchair, with no uneven ground, even in the shower tray in the master bedroom,” Koroluk says.
GokoStudio
The vanity and the backlit mirror in the bathroom are also custom.
GokoStudio
The sink is integrated into the countertop and is made of the same porcelain stoneware that covers the wall.
GokoStudio
Space borrowed from what was originally the kitchen has made the sleeping areas more spacious and functional.
GokoStudio
The son’s bedroom looks onto the street and gets plenty of natural light.

This renovation also restored the ceilings to their original height, giving the century-old apartment the elegance it had lost in previous renovations. This was a challenge, however, as the design had to accommodate numerous built-in systems: air conditioning, heating, uninterruptible power supply, water softening, water filtration, 4K projector, screen and audio.
These were incorporated into a false ceiling, which was laid over closets and other features whenever possible. This made it possible to preserve the full ceiling height in the main spaces.
GokoStudio
Koroluk, right, poses with the owners in the kitchen. The collaborations between the architects and owners was fluid and fruitful thanks to timely communication and close supervision of the project from beginning to end.

“This renovation has brought us great joy,” Mateo says.

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