Paloma Bau Studio Turns a Fisherman's Grandparents' Home into a Mediterranean Ode to the Sea

The Cabanyal neighborhood in Valencia was built by fishermen, and its narrow houses still carry the rhythms of that life: turquoise tile facades, Alicante blinds, wooden carpentry worn by salt air. Casa Ona sits inside one of these heritage-protected buildings, a modest 80-square-meter dwelling originally built in 1925 and passed down through a family. The current owner grew up in the neighborhood; the house belonged to his grandparents. When Paloma Bau Studio took on the renovation, the task was not simply to update an old flat but to unearth a personal and architectural history that decades of ad hoc modifications had buried.

What makes this project worth attention is the specificity of its references. Every surface decision ties back to a named place: sand-colored continuous flooring inspired by the beaches of Bolonia in Cádiz, a turquoise Silestone kitchen island meant to evoke the movement of sea water, a small bathroom whose palette references Cala Rotja in Menorca. These are not vague "Mediterranean vibes." They are love letters to particular coves and particular coastlines, filtered through a material discipline that keeps the whole thing from tipping into kitsch.

Stripping Back to Structure

The original 70-square-meter floor plan was dark and heavily partitioned, a common condition in Cabanyal houses where rooms were subdivided over generations to accommodate changing family needs. Paloma Bau Studio's first move was demolition: tearing away false ceilings, plasterboard walls, and surface coverings to expose the load-bearing brick walls and the wooden beam structure with its vaulted ceiling. The result is legible architecture. You can read the house's bones, from the reddish brick piers to the timber joists, and understand how the building was made.

The decision to show defects alongside beauty is deliberate. Weathered brick, patched plaster, timber beams with visible age marks: none of it has been sanded into perfection. Instead, the new interventions, the sand-colored floor, the white-painted vaults, the lacquered wooden slat panels, read as a distinct contemporary layer set against the rough historical fabric. The contrast is the point.

The Kitchen Island as Centerpiece

In a house this compact, the kitchen island does more work than any single element should have to. Finished in turquoise green Silestone and clad with textured tiles that ripple like water, it anchors the open-plan zone that merges kitchen, living room, and dining area. The island is not just a surface for cooking. It is a spatial divider, a color anchor, and the primary piece of furniture in the public half of the house. Its watery palette against the warm oak cabinetry and sand floor creates a clear temperature shift, cool meeting warm, that organizes the entire room.

Behind the kitchen, a wall of lacquered wooden slats conceals two hidden programs: a storage room large enough to hold a surfboard and a small bathroom whose green zellige tiles nod to the rocky Mediterranean coves that inspired the project. The sliding panels operate with quiet efficiency, folding open to reveal the bathroom alcove and closing flush to maintain the clean rhythm of the public space.

Living Spaces and Filtered Light

The living area works because of restraint. A low sofa, a microcement coffee table, linen textiles, and a timber sideboard sit beneath the vaulted ceiling with its exposed beams. The furnishings are deliberately low-slung, which amplifies the perceived ceiling height and lets the timber structure dominate the room. Sheer curtains diffuse the hard Valencia light into something softer, filling the space without glare.

Traditional Alicante blinds, the slatted wooden shutters characteristic of Cabanyal homes, were restored to their original window proportions. Previous alterations had changed the window shapes; Paloma Bau Studio corrected them, reinstating the facade's rhythm and returning a passive climate strategy that predates air conditioning by a century. The blinds regulate heat gain while allowing ventilation, a practical detail that also happens to be one of the most recognizable visual signatures of the neighborhood.

The Brick Spine

The rear half of the house, containing the bedroom, office, and bathroom, is organized around the original reddish brick load-bearing wall. Rather than concealing it, the studio uses existing openings in the brick as thresholds and frames, connecting a walk-in closet alongside the bedroom to the adjacent bathroom. The brick reads as a geological feature, something the house is built around rather than with. Remnant openings, arched or rectangular, frame views from one room to the next, creating a layered visual depth that belies the apartment's tight footprint.

Floating shelves with trailing plants, a timber bed frame, and a ceiling fan keep the bedroom spare. The exposed brick wall beside the bed is the room's dominant texture, and the studio was wise enough not to compete with it. Everything else recedes.

The Facade and Its Neighborhood

Cabanyal's facades are protected heritage, and rightly so. The turquoise tiles that adorn this building's street face are part of a neighborhood-wide language of color and pattern that gives the district its identity. Paloma Bau Studio's exterior intervention was accordingly careful: new wooden window frames that match the original profiles, restored Alicante shutters painted the characteristic green, and no visible alteration to the tiled surface. The ornate ironwork balconies remain untouched.

Inside, the narrow hallway with its exposed weathered brick wall and white cabinetry acts as a compression point between the public and private zones. It is the thinnest part of the plan, and the brick here feels close and tactile, a reminder that you are moving through something old on your way to something new.

Artisan Details and Material Honesty

The bathroom's green zellige tile backsplash against raw brick is one of the most photogenic moments in the house, but it also demonstrates a broader material strategy. Every finish in Casa Ona is either exposed original fabric or a handmade surface: clay lighting fixtures by artisan Adriana Cabello in varying granulations, microcement furniture, textured tiles. There is no laminate, no composite panel, nothing that pretends to be something else. The material palette is honest in a way that lets you feel the hand of the maker and the age of the building simultaneously.

The clay lighting pieces, integrated into the ceilings and structural bays, deserve particular mention. They are not statement pendants. They are textural accents that reinforce the organic warmth of the space, their rough surfaces catching light in ways that echo the exposed brick and timber around them.

Plans and Drawings

The floor plan reveals the angular, elongated footprint typical of Cabanyal's narrow-lot houses. The open-plan front zone, with the kitchen island as its fulcrum, occupies roughly half the plan. The rear portion is subdivided more traditionally, with the brick wall acting as the primary organizing element between bedroom, closet, and bathroom. The section drawings show the vaulted ceiling's profile and the relationship between the pendant lighting, the tiled counter element, and the exposed brick walls. What reads as effortless openness in photographs is, in plan, a precisely calibrated sequence of compressions and releases within a very tight envelope.

Why This Project Matters

Casa Ona is a renovation of just 80 square meters, but it operates with a clarity of intent that larger projects often lack. The maritime references are specific, the material choices are legible, and the structural archaeology is presented without sentimentality. Paloma Bau Studio understood that the most interesting thing about this house was already there: its bones, its neighborhood, its family history. The design work was a process of removal and revelation, punctuated by carefully placed moments of new craft.

More broadly, the project is a case study in how to work within heritage constraints without treating them as burdens. The protected facade, the Alicante blinds, the brick load-bearing walls: these are not obstacles to contemporary living but the very things that give the house its character. In a city where neighborhoods like Cabanyal face relentless development pressure, projects that prove heritage and comfort are not mutually exclusive carry weight beyond their square footage.

Casa Ona by Paloma Bau Studio. Located in the Cabanyal neighborhood, Valencia, Spain. 80 m². Completed 2024. Photography by David Zarzoso.

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