From Plaça to Palau is a lovely apartment located in Betxí, Spain, redesigned in 2021 by Piano Piano Studio.

Description
There is a custom in many villages of building a house thinking of the future of the family, as a “perfectible” construction, in which parents or grandparents leave a structural skeleton, an enclosure, hoping that their children or grandchildren will inhabit it in the future according to their needs. This is how we found this house on the second floor of a building in “Plaça Major” (main square) of Betxí, that had never been inhabited before.
When entering for the first time, we were surprised by its proportions, since it was very long, 25 m, with respect to the width, just 7 m. The fact of being in a diaphanous and naked space at that moment made that feeling increase. The house is a passer-by between two orientations: to the east, its facade falls on the inside of the block, calm, with lots of vegetation and views towards a palace of the XV century, while to the west it falls on the Plaça Major, the busiest place of the town. There is a courtyard in the center, but originally its three opaque facades prevented light from entering the house.
It was perhaps the possibility of having a closer relationship with the outside that made us redirect our look towards the courtyard, so far filled. Despite its apparent darkness and narrowness, it was the courtyard that caught our attention at the time of starting the project...