Cottart
Cottage + Art
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Cottart is the proposal for my degree thesis, an artistic residency.
It was a finalist project of the XV edition of the Interior Design Final Degree Awards, organized by CODIC (Official College of Decorators and Interior Designers of Catalonia) in 2014.
The building
The building selected is one of the oldest historical heritage buildings left in the country. It belonged to Rossell family, one of the most powerful families in the XVII century in Andorra which was related to the iron industry in the Pyrenees.
The exterior structure is almost preserved being the interior rehabilitation the most important part. The interior design improves the functional aspects of the new usage as an artistic residency considering factors like distribution, communications, accesibility and regulations.
Cottart wants to preserve the historical elements of the building and represent them in the new design. Metal is the main material of the project due to the historical meaning, but also other materials like wood and stone contribute to the idea of preserving historial elements.
Cottart has two ambiences, the workshop and the hosting house, both surrounded by an exterior garden. In the workshop we can find the multi-functional room, the gallery, the classroom and the library. In the hosting building we can find the hall, the eating room and the kitchen on the first floor and the bedrooms and bathrooms on the second and third floor.
Conceptual idea
The main idea of the project is the common wealth. This idea stems from two concepts.
In one hand the ancient living style. The members of the family helped each other as a community living under the same roof. We can appreciate this idea in the communicated and multi-functional large rooms.
In the other hand the historical archive of the Goverment. This was a cabinet that only could be opened with seven keys at the same time, each one belonging to each district.
Every bedroom has a different color according to the environmental psycology. Each one is used in benefit of the wealth artistic production and they are assigned depending on the artists state of mind.
Logo
Two capital tees (T+T) build the logo. They are turned off to 45º with a translational movement starting in the internal upper vertex. The result is a mesh but also may seem a typical roof. Both tees are composed by different pieces in six different colours representing the bedroom's colours.
