A Barcelona Designer Reimagines a Factory Loft For His Family—With “Absolutely No Doors”

Gabriele Schiavon needed a place to live. After a breakup, the cofounder and creative director of the Barcelona-based design studio Lagranja needed enough space to co-parent the two children, Teo and Ona, then 9 and 13, he has with his ex. "I looked around Barcelona’s trendy inner areas and couldn’t find anything that I even minimally liked that was in my budget," he remembers. Feeling slightly desperate, he searched online for an affordable but sizable property for sale. In the outer-limits barrio of Bellvitge, a recently vacated thermal mold workshop popped up.