Curtidores 32 in Madrid reinterprets the mattress showroom as a sequence of intimate, domestic environments. Designed by JOTAJOTA+, the project replaces conventional retail displays with a spatial system that privileges use, testing, and personal experience, in which movement, material, and enclosure operate together to reshape the act of shopping.
Curtidores 32 Technical Information
- ArchitectsJOTAJOTA+
- LocationCalle Ribera de Curtidores 32, Madrid, Spain
- Gross Area290 m2 | 3121 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years2024 – 2025
- Photographs© Hiperfocal
The project constructs a spatial system where circulation, enclosure, and display dissolve into a continuous domestic experience.
– Javier Onrubia
Reframing Retail as Domestic Landscape
Curtidores 32 departs from the conventional logic of retail interiors by prioritizing inhabitation over display. Rather than organizing products along linear aisles or hierarchical zones, the project constructs an environment that resembles a domestic interior in both scale and atmosphere. Beds are presented not as objects for comparison but as elements within discrete living situations, inviting prolonged interaction and physical testing.
This shift transforms the act of shopping into a spatial narrative defined by use. Visitors move through a sequence of environments that evoke bedrooms rather than a showroom floor, dissolving the distinction between private and commercial space. The design encourages a slower mode of engagement, where the user occupies the architecture as much as they observe it.
The ambiguity between showroom and dwelling becomes the project’s primary device. It reframes consumer behavior by removing the pressure to make immediate decisions and replacing it with a more introspective experience rooted in comfort and familiarity.
Spatial Organization: Perimeter Logic and آزاد Circulation
The plan is structured by a continuous birch plywood perimeter that consolidates display, storage, and lighting into a unified architectural band. This horizontal datum stabilizes the space, offering a consistent backdrop against which the more fluid interior elements operate. Integrated niches with warm lighting reinforce the domestic association, recalling headboards and bedside illumination.
Within this defined edge, circulation is deliberately non-linear. The free path allows visitors to navigate the space independently, guided by visual cues rather than prescribed routes. This strategy disrupts typical retail choreography, replacing directed movement with exploratory wandering.
The arrangement of mattresses across both the perimeter and the central field avoids corridor-based organization. Instead, the layout produces a porous spatial condition in which movement flows in multiple directions and sightlines overlap. This openness supports both autonomy and subtle social awareness, as visitors remain partially visible to one another through layered partitions.
Curtains, Tracks, and the Construction of Privacy
A system of suspended steel tracks defines the project’s primary spatial infrastructure. Sinuous yellow elements connect the interior zones, while circular rings establish individual enclosures. Together, they form a dual system of movement and containment that operates above eye level yet directs the experience below.
Sheer curtains suspended from these tracks create soft boundaries around each bed. Their translucency allows light and silhouettes to pass through, maintaining visual continuity while introducing a degree of separation. Privacy is therefore negotiated rather than enforced, achieved through gradation instead of solid partitioning.
The ceiling becomes an active field where multiple systems coexist. Exposed ducts, cable trays, and rendered surfaces intersect with the suspended tracks, producing a layered composition that contrasts with the softness of the curtains. This tension between technical exposure and domestic enclosure reinforces the project’s dual identity as both infrastructure and interior landscape.
Material and Chromatic Strategy as Spatial Device
The project employs a restrained palette to control perception and hierarchy. Yellow lacquered steel defines key structural and circulatory elements, acting as a visual guide throughout the space. Neutral porcelain tiles establish a continuous ground plane, allowing other materials to operate as discrete interventions.
Carpeted zones in saturated yellow introduce moments of domesticity without physical enclosure. These islands anchor each bed within a recognizable spatial unit, suggesting rooms without constructing walls. The effect is both graphic and spatial, reinforcing orientation while preserving openness.
The juxtaposition of textures plays a central role in the interior’s atmospheric quality. Rough tyrolean render on walls and ceilings absorbs and diffuses light, contrasting with the smoother surfaces of plywood, steel, and textile. This interplay enhances depth and tactility, allowing the environment to shift subtly as one moves through it.
About JOTAJOTA+
JOTAJOTA+ is a Madrid-based architecture studio founded in 2021 by Javier Onrubia and Jorge Gabaldón. Conceived as an open framework for collaboration, the practice brings together diverse disciplines, technical expertise, and scales of work to produce rigorous and distinctive projects. Their approach emphasizes spatial clarity, material precision, and the integration of architecture with user experience, often exploring new ways of inhabiting commercial and domestic environments.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: Colchon Expres
- Lighting: Luz Negra
- Furniture/Products: HAY
