Valencia workspace gets Tokyo inspired makeover

Valencia’s Ruzafa neighbourhood has long been a hub for creative studios, drawn to its walkable streets and mixed-use blocks.

This 170sqm space, called Sornells 21, was conceived by architecture and interior design practice Paloma Bau and creative studio T.O.T, led by designer Ausiàs Pérez, for their respective teams and a wider community of creative professionals. The collaboration between the two teams developed organically, with Pérez’s return to Valencia coinciding with Paloma Bau’s search for a new studio.

It is a genuine experiment in creative cohabitation.

T.O.T led the conceptual development of the space, while Paloma Bau handled its architectural materialisation. This division brings together T.O.T’s speculative, brand-culture sensibility with Paloma Bau’s precision in translating ideas into geometry, matter, and detail. They developed a reinterpretation of three everyday urban experiences from Tokyo: the ceramic-tiled street, the izakaya bar, and the onsen.

Reinterpreting Urban Experiences

The arrival sequence sets the tone immediately, with white 10×10 ceramic tiles wrapping the entrance threshold in a logic borrowed from Tokyo’s urban façades. A large ceiling mirror doubles the space and creates a disorienting in-between sensation, while a solid white concrete bench grounds the moment and introduces one of the project’s recurring materials.

Beyond the threshold, the U-shaped plan organises around a 7.2-metre cantilevered table in black San Vicente stone. This statement piece can seat nearly twenty people and pivot between coworking table, dining surface, presentation venue, or tasting bar. A bespoke longitudinal luminaire inspired by Noren—the textile curtains marking the thresholds of Japanese taverns—casts a warm horizontal rhythm across the space, much like the warm ambiance found in a sanctuary.

Izakaya Logic and Inversions

The izakaya logic is extended with characteristic wit, as the kitchen sits outside the bar, inverting convention. A mirror placed opposite reflects the cook back into the space, symbolically resolving the contradiction. The onsen-inspired meeting room, accessed via a concealed stair within the kitchen panelling, is the project’s most theatrical move, with pink tile, Klein blue metalwork, shower-head luminaires, and a painted neon sky making it feel otherworldly against the studio’s prevailing restraint.

The adjacent bathrooms in intense red push the contrast further still. Materially, light microcement flooring unifies the entire sequence, while a sprayed cellulose ceiling handles acoustics and leaves services and curtain rails exposed. All bespoke furniture was manufactured by the Valencian firm Lebrel Furniture, with technical lighting by Arkoslight and decorative rice-paper lamps supplying warmth.

It is a space that can flex from studio to exhibition, from meeting to dinner, without a wall being moved, much like the flexible spaces found in some modern farmhouses.