Villa Parque, a historic 19th-century villa located in Barcelona's iconic Gràcia neighborhood, has been transformed into a modern, open, and fluid living space while preserving its historical character and maintaining its connection to the surrounding garden. The renovation was carried out by h3o, one of Spain's most renowned architectural firms, creating what can only be described as an urban paradise.
The property is now home to a couple who recently returned from abroad to settle in the neighborhood where they grew up, seeking to remain close to their son, daughter-in-law, and newborn granddaughter. Living in Gràcia, an emblematic neighborhood of the Catalan city, is already a privilege, but inhabiting Barcelona in a large individual villa with a 19th-century garden is almost a gift from the gods. The architects were introduced to the family through a unique connection - they had previously renovated an apartment on the same street for the couple's children.
The architects at h3o explain that this time, the clients were the parents of a couple whose apartment they had renovated on the same street. "It was beautiful to see how architecture had created a bond of trust, transmitted from one generation to another," they noted. The main challenge for the parents' house was to transform a very compartmentalized and opaque house into an open, fluid space deeply connected to the garden.
The renovation focused on making the garden the true domestic heart of the home. The intervention establishes an intimate and porous relationship between interior and exterior spaces. The house, built to face all four directions, contained latent potential to open up more to greenery, light, and air. The architects' goal was to build an honest, serene, and evocative materiality capable of dialoguing with both the memory of the house and the landscape that surrounds it.
The transformation involved a delicate but resolute structural renovation: opening up large spaces, redefining pathways, and freeing up ceilings to create visual and spatial continuity. According to the firm, this operation eliminated corridors and dead ends, creating a fluid floor plan where each space connects to the next and to the exterior in an organic and intuitive manner, promoting a new way of living in the home.
On the ground floor, elevated above the garden level, the space is now conceived as one large living area where the kitchen, dining room, and entrance hall interweave in a free-flowing path that leads to the facade opening onto the garden. The ground floor is decorated in bright, clear white tones and is entirely covered with mirrors to create a play of reflections and transparencies, referring to the sensation of lightness from being elevated and crossed by the greenery of the park and garden.
The lower level, semi-underground, offers a more intimate and protected atmosphere. The bedrooms, directly opening onto the garden, benefit from a privileged connection with nature. The garden acts as a true extension of the house, with continuous flooring transforming the space into a habitable extension, while planted areas dialogue with the facades. The semi-underground garden is in direct contact with the earth, hence the choice of more natural materials. Wood flooring accentuates this proximity, and the beige tones of certain walls reinforce the idea of connection to the materiality of the soil.
The transformations are numerous, but they do not erase the house's memory - rather, they reveal it through small gestures. The staircase, for example, was simply repainted in an intense blue that dialogues with Mediterranean architecture, and the roof structure has preserved its now-exposed wooden beams. The original tiles have also been preserved and reorganized to structure the spaces. "The project conserves and highlights original elements such as hydraulic floors, now arranged like carpets that delimit the zones where previously partitioned rooms were located, highlighting traces of another way of living," explain the designers.
The house features 240 square meters of interior space and 120 square meters of garden. The renovation incorporates high-quality materials and fixtures throughout, including Venetian blinds from Persiana Barcelona, white hydraulic mosaics from Mosaics Martí, a Smeg PXL675L gas cooktop, SFERIS suspension lighting from Zafferano, and several Davide Groppi lamps distributed throughout the house, including the Edi Son model.
Villa Parque displays an imposing presence - spacious, with high ceilings and generous proportions - yet it exudes intimate and enveloping warmth. The natural light, noble materials, and constant connection with the garden ensure that despite its size, the house remains welcoming, calm, and pleasant to live in. "It's a place where it feels good to stay," summarizes h3o. The angular lines of the exterior recall other projects by the firm, while a custom-designed garden fountain by h3o adds a distinctive touch to the outdoor space.
The comprehensive renovation successfully balances preservation of historical elements with modern living requirements, creating a unique project that restores full meaning to a historically significant property through new distributions, reimagined materials, and thoughtful design interventions that honor both the past and present.
