Two designers tile a Valencia office like a Tokyo lobby

May 26. Architect Paloma Bau and creative director Ausiàs Pérez opened Sornells 21, a shared office in Valencia's Ruzafa district, designed entirely by the two of them. The space centers on a large communal kitchen. The walls are tiled floor-to-ceiling, a direct lift from the facades Bau photographed during a research trip to Tokyo.

The tile choice is the detail that matters here. Japanese apartment buildings and small commercial blocks use tile as weatherproofing and maintenance reduction. The material reads practical in Tokyo, decorative in Valencia. Bau and Pérez imported the logic but shifted the context. The result is a studio that looks like a lobby transplanted into a residential neighborhood.

The kitchen as the anchor

The kitchen occupies the largest room in the office. This is the inverse of most shared studios, where kitchens are squeezed into service corners. Sornells 21 treats cooking space as the central room, with desks pushed to the perimeter. The two designers work across disciplines but share meal prep as the daily ritual that structures the day.

The tile extends into the kitchen. White subway tile on three walls, terracotta on the fourth. The terracotta recalls Tokyo's older mid-rise blocks, the ones built in the 1970s before glass curtain walls became the default. Bau has cited those buildings in previous interviews as the clearest example of material honesty she's encountered.

The address as the name

Sornells 21 is named after its street address. No studio name, no brand layer. The choice signals a specific kind of practice: location-first, not concept-first. The space is what it is because of where it sits, not because of a manifesto written before the lease was signed.

The Ruzafa neighborhood has absorbed a wave of design studios in the past three years, most of them operating out of converted apartments. Sornells 21 fits that pattern but leans harder into residential logic. The communal kitchen is the tell. Most studios keep client-facing and private space separate. This one merges them, which means clients walk past the stove to reach the desks.