Enveloped by the surrounding vegetation and looking out onto the blue horizon from above, the glassed-in house designed by Bruno Erpicum, from the Belgian architecture studio AABE, manages to isolate itself and create a world all of its own playing with the borders between the interior and the exterior. The glass walls usher in all the light of the Mediterranean and overlook the sea, the pine-covered hills, and the sky. Placed over a lower level that houses the bedrooms, the upper floor boasts a huge common space that brings together the living, dining, and cooking areas, projecting outward by a walkway to an adjoining building whose blue infinity surface invites you to plunge in and peer out, your body still underwater, at the view of the bay below.

Now that you have cooled down, you return to the common space and walk over to the impressive white laminate bulthaup b3 island, set against the backdrop of tall units finished in black brown vertical grain oak. You choose two tomatoes with an irresistible aroma. You wash them and the cold water runs over your hands as you look up, letting your gaze linger on a white sail moving across the blue distance.

Architect:  Bruno Erpicum.

Place:  “ Puig manya” Cap martinet

Photographs: Casa Viva y Diseño Interior.

Installation date:  2008

The Scandinavian couple that decided to set up their second home by the seaside arrived in Marbella seeking light and warmth. They entrusted architect Guillermo Priego Iribarnegaray with the task of designing a home that would fulfill that wish while attending to the specific features of the site and the local climate. The result is a space that plays with direct sunlight and filtered light, with the notions of privacy and visibility, of exterior and interior, striking a perfect balance.

The use of white, black, and shades of grey suggests a nod to early modernity, emphasized by the powerful geometric axes in the large common space that brings together the areas for living, dining, and cooking. A key presence within this interplay of hues and geometries is the bulthaup kitchen: a bold b3 monoblock in grey aluminum with a stainless steel worktop, set against an understated background of tall units finished in matte white lacquer. It is the engine of the ship, the driving force in the common area.

This open-plan space is the magnet that draws the owners in–along with their children, friends, and grandchildren–at all hours: to meet for breakfast, coming back from the beach, heading in from the poolside, or sitting down in the late afternoon to decide how to cook the fish they bought early that morning, with the large sliding doors open to the courtyard, letting in the salty sea breeze.

Living, dining, and cooking are brought together into a large central space that opens onto the rooftop terrace, drawn towards the light. The appealing balance of colors between the light oak floors and the powerful grain in the apple wood wall panels–which conceal a refrigerator, storage space, and many other details of everyday life–is enhanced by the grey sofas and the black armchairs and table. The table, in turn, is an extension of the powerful block securing the rearguard: a solid bulthaup island finished in dark gray aluminum with a Zimbabwe granite worktop. This striking sculptural element anchors the ensemble in the central space, inviting you to cook, stare out the picture windows and­–depending on the angle of the sunlight and the breeze–discuss whether it would be best to sip a glass of wine out on the terrace or stay inside and keep on chatting and dining by the crackling fireside.

A sense of balance is calming. It invites you to stay. What began as a seasonal residence ended up exerting its appeal all year round.

bulthaup Barcelona, bach 7

Architecs: Urgell Arquitectos y Tristan Velasco

Project management: Roger Fernandez de Söder Property management

m2: 20 m2

Location: Barcelona

Sorry this post is only in Spanish at the moment.

The title is inspired by Otl Aicher’s book The Kitchen for Cooking, which suggests that the history of cooking is every bit as interesting as the history of architecture. Cooking has its roots in preserving food, but it has become more than that. It is the act in which we state our humanity–an experience to be shared.

The owner of this apartment, located in the luxury housing development designed by architect Jean Nouvel in the city of Ibiza, decided to set the kitchen at center stage. The choice was for a striking system b3 monoblock island finished in stainless steel and matte white lacquer, with a seamless surface covering the back panel and the worktop. Equipped with two teppanyakis, an induction cooktop, and a professional space with full-height units to house the refrigerator and an additional working area, it is a kitchen fit for the grandest of chefs.

bulthaup Barcelona, Greek

Design: Berta Roca
Photographs: Elisenda Fontarnau
Surface area: 16m2
Location: Ibiza

In this ambitious project, architect Santi Parramón placed his main focus on natural light in space. Broken down into a series of volumes that extend from a central core, each one leading to a full-height glass wall, this single-family residence boldly reaches out to the exterior, encompassing the sky and the outline of the mountains. In this variety of angles and spaces, light shifts according to the different times of day and seasons, introducing an element of constant change. The skin of the house–of an earthy shade that merges with the surrounding landscape–is seamless, without any breaks between the outer walls and the roof.

In the volume that houses the kitchen, the choice of a large bulthaup b3 island in alpine white laminate underscores the vanishing lines that connect the interior with the exterior, reinforcing a continuum that is essential to the overall conception of the residence.

Throughout the day, the light keeps on changing–whereas at night the home becomes a solid sculpture, a geometric composition glowing in the dark: an inviting beacon in which the role of bulthaup is key.

bulthaup Sant Cugat

Architects: YC/ Santiago Parramón

Photograph: Lorenzo Vecchia

Place: San Cugat

Each space has its own voice and resonates in a unique way. For the bulthaup Sant Cugat team, the simple geometry of the architecture in this single-family residence elicited an interplay of powerful horizontal axes that merges the kitchen with an informal dining area, which in turn extends onto the terrace. The sliding glass door that connects this area with the airy living room opens up an even wider angle of vision, integrating the different areas into one ongoing living space.

The alpine white laminate finish on the large bulthaup b3 cooking and preparation island, echoed in the facing line of tall and base units, heightens the existing natural light; as a counterpoint, the louvered window and the grey finish on the back wall units create a contrast of darkness and shadows. The final outcome is an atmosphere of serenity, an enveloping, safe haven to which one dreams of returning time and time again.

A magnificent building in the late 19th-century district of San Sebastián known as the ensanche housed a space with peculiar proportions that posed a veritable challenge for Íñigo Axpe’s interior decorating team. The couple who owned the space was particularly open to pursuing a bold, unusual architectural venture. The result is a home featuring a geometric ensemble with a hint of mid-century modern that is powerfully consistent, a residence where bulthaup ventures far beyond the kitchen, creating a multi-purpose, large, open space.

The interiors, which could have appeared as rather cold, acquire elegant warmth with the use of a palette of dark hues and of materials that seem to hark back to even earlier years–to the art deco of New York and Chicago. However, here the ornamentation is minimal, reduced to a bold interplay of parallel lines: vertical in a panel of wood slats that frames a b2 kitchen workshop, and horizontal in the upper border of the tall wood-finished b3 units. The materials used for this line of tall units–rough sawn oak–in turn echo the solid oak of the bar top and the flooring, creating a dramatic contrast with the graphite laminate on the other floor-to-ceiling unit line, on the base of the island, and on the bulthaup kitchen worktop.

In San Sebastián, once again, we are reminded that less is more: bulthaup offers a stark, dramatic backdrop that leaves the center stage to the lives unfolding within.

bulthaup San Sebastián

Interior design : Iñigo Axpe

m2:  82m2

Date: July 2014

Place: San Sebastián

Near the Catalan village of Camallera, in the Empordà, architects Sergi Serra and Marta Adroer have designed a home with striking horizontal lines whose interrelation conveys a harmonious sense of movement and, at the same time, of calm. A large, elongated single-level volume partially covered in local natural stone, slightly elevated and sheltered by a series of courtyards and porches, emerges from the rust-colored ground. As in an unexpected shift from the building’s footprint, a pool reminiscent of a long irrigation reservoir overlaps with part of the front wall, extending beyond it. The water’s surface mirrors the stone and the sky.

The open space inside this imposing structure springs to life with a sequence of light and shadow marked by the columns placed at regular intervals along the large expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows. Across from these, against the opposing interior wall, an utterly simple bulthaup b3 kitchen in white laminate with a separate cooking island is the key element that brings this clear, fluid space together–a place where people cook, eat, read, talk, and watch the changing light in the late afternoon.

bulthaup Girona

Architects: Sergi Serra and Marta Adroer

Date: December 2013

Place: Camallera, Girona

Kitchen Space:  19,22 m2

Photograph: Lourdes Jansana

The kitchen is an architectural space located in the heart of the home and accessible to other rooms. Timelessness, austerity and minimalism integrates harmoniously with the rustic and rural architecture with a common goal: the consistency and quality of materials.

bulthaup Girona

Architect: Montse Nogués Teixidor
Place: Sant Joan les Fonts. Zona volcánica de la Garrotxa.
Kitchen Space: 40 m2
Photograph: Marc Torra_Fragments.cat
Date: July 2012