La Mejicana Refurbishment / Alba Balmaseda

La Mejicana looks for opportunities in the limitations. A project that consciously respects the existing and attempts to reduce interventions to a minimum. A special focus on reviving disregarded elements and reinventing interior and exterior spaces. This project is a renovation of an existing building. It would be impossible to build a new house in that proximity to the seafront, given the strict regulations in Spain for coast protection. The only allowed interventions for this existing building were repair, upgrade, structural consolidation, and energy improvement. Being expressly forbidden to increase the built volume. These restrictions have both strongly conditioned the development of the project and at the same time opened up unexpected possibilities. The transformation of the existing space is designed from a deep understanding of what is inherited from the original structure and its inhabitants, the conditioning factors of strict regulation, the needs of the new residents, and what the place gives.