Kitchen and Dining

Traditional blue and white azulejos tiles define the bright kitchen.

"Maintaining sight lines to the outdoors and the adjacent den, we introduced a connectivity that transforms the kitchen into the center of family life,

Lisette Bernhoft of Design by Us planned the kitchen. The smoked oak cabinets are topped with lava stone. The pulls are brass.

Exploratory demolition revealed enough space in the kitchen for an Asko washer-dryer and a full-size refrigerator.

“The most important thing to do in a small space is exploratory demolition,” Pozner says. “We found all that height in the bathroom ceiling. There are giant cabinets above the bed—we found all that space. This facilitated architect Darrick Borowski’s small-space rallying cry: “Built-ins, built-ins, built-ins!”

The new kitchen, part of the reconstructed extension, takes advantage of ample glass.

A sink station on the southern side helps for cleanup and ceramic making.

Peris + Toral Arquitectes, the same Barcelona firm behind the 2024 RIBA International Prize–winning Modulus Matrix, designed Borrassá, a mixed-used building with 54 social housing units, in the city’s Besòs district. The brick lattice walls help ventilate the atrium.

The kitchen's new location makes it so Marcela can open the doors to the terrace and entertain inside and out.

The kitchen cabinetry is crafted from black-stained American Oak by Pro-Reno Kitchens. The dining table, chairs, and bar stools are made by local wood manufacturer Houtlander. A diamond-shaped skylight is a unique touch.

The public wing of the house has a large, open plan that includes the living room, kitchen, and dining room. The six-seater island is made from South African granite sourced through a local quarry. The homeowners had it leathered to look like it came straight out of the ground.

The former galley kitchen was effectively enlarged by wrapping new cabinetry around the corner to face the dining room. “You're taking something away from another space, but we did it in a very careful way,” says Robinson. “It was just this one simple extra bit of storage that visually opened the kitchen to the rest of the room.”