“Everything revolves around the concept of play,” explained Hernández Palacios, who co-founded Masquespacio with Penasse in 2010.
“We’ve been influenced by many styles over the last decade, from New Memphis to art deco and futurism,” Penasse added. “We can say that our private home is a mix of it all.”
The duo maintained the building’s original timber front door and white facade decorated with light-blue window frames and ornate grilles.
Inside, the ground floor was reserved for their studio, spread across several interconnected meeting rooms in the former farmstead, known locally as an alquería.
Here, Masquespacio restored the building’s decoratively patterned hydraulic floor tiles alongside its traditional doors and windows.
Painted in bright hues, they help to colour-code the different office spaces, filled with the studio’s characteristic chunky, lumpy and latticed furniture.
“As always, the project includes a mix of colours, textures and forms – one of the main aspects of all our designs, no matter what aesthetic we’re working with,” Penasse told Dezeen.
At the centre of the home is a double-height interior courtyard illuminated by skylights, with exposed-brick walls painted in lilac surrounded by wiggly flowerbeds with lush statement cheese plants.
From the courtyard, visitors can see up to an interior balcony on the first floor, which is accessed via a purple concrete staircase and contains the living spaces.
The balcony reveals two sculptural objects – a giant green dome that conceals the couple’s bed and a curved hot-pink screen that hides a seating booth.
This immersive furniture – Penasse’s favourite part of the project – creates a focal point that connects both levels of the house but also provides more private quarters for the couple despite the open nature of the overall plan.
“There are no wall partitions to hide our home [from downstairs] but it’s kept private by the bed’s form and a semi-transparent green curtain that allows us to take advantage of the natural light almost everywhere on the upper floor,” explained Penasse.
The sleeping area is connected to the main living space via a tunnel-like corridor, which includes an all-yellow bathroom with triangular cabinets and walls clad with a mosaic of handmade ceramic tiles.
