Navigating initial commissions

We met in 2013, working in a big office in the small town of Olot. In 2019, we made the decision to focus on our own work and thus begin our journey together. A journey in which conjointly, we could explore our own worlds, discover our personal methods, and share our enthusiasm for architecture. From there, what started with one small commission, led to another, and another, and another…

Immersed in nature

A year before founding Estudio Além, a series of coincidences led us to live in a masía (a Catalonian country house), surrounded by nature, enveloped in a forest, and isolated from the city. What some would consider pointlessness was for us a clear opportunity. We had been reflecting for years on what a house is, on what it is to inhabit, and on places of reflection, and our move allowed us to continue to deepen our studies in first person. Disappear from the life that is deemed as real, actual. Immerse ourselves in a natural environment in which we could unlearn and then learn based on observation and experience.

A reflective process

It was a period of introspection and we understood early on that we were just one more piece of the ecosystem. The anthropomorphic point of view disappears in a vital experience like this. A year may be nothing, but many things changed in us, and undoubtedly, it influenced some of the values and the foundation of our work in Estudio Além: from our philosophy of coexisting with the history of certain spaces, to the need to understand the emotional and sensory qualities of materials, of imperfection, of that which is not immediate; and above all, it influenced our love of the processes and the patient pursuit.

Taking advantage of connectivity

We focus most of our work on the creative process, understanding this as a path full of twists and turns, as a slow process where the complexities of each layer that makes up the project are resolved from the simplicity of a conceptual integrity. We live in a hyperconnected and technological world that lets us believe that offices with small structures, working collaboratively, are not only possible, but also allow a more personal and individual way of approaching architecture.

A place to discover values

It seemed wise to consider the studio as an extension of the house. We found an old modernist house built at the beginning of the nineteenth century, which allowed us to combine studio and house together, while maintaining independence from each. We adapted our contemporary way of living to this history-filled space, with its hand-painted ceilings and fabric tapestries lining the walls. Its atmosphere, the richness of the rooms and the weight of history made it an inspiring venue for us. A place that allows us to pursue those architectural values that we believe in.

Sensitive projects

Our only aspiration is to continue actualising creative processes that are increasingly exciting, full of greater freedom, and that enable growth, however small, in the lives of the people for whom we work. And for that, to continue believing in a continually searching in a way that deepens and, at the same time moves away, to reach the essential, helped by timeless principles that allow us to reduce spaces, objects, ideas and images to the nature of things, to that which is primary and primitive. Far from literal, inflexible and closed validations, we aim to remain interested in what the projects provoke, what they transmit, what they induce and the relationships they establish with the individual and with the place and its context.