Owner: Ana Hernández and Christophe Penasse (Masquespacio)
Interior design: Masquespacio
Furnishings: Mas Creations by Masquespacio, Iberpoligraph, Maxcolchon
Floor: Cement Design
Curtains: Gabriel, Kvadrat, Vescom
Tiles: Maora Ceramics
Photo credits: Luis Beltran
“When we founded our studio in 2010, the goal was to do something different that made us proud and expressed our desire for innovation in all our projects.” Ana Hernández and Christophe Penasse, the pair behind Masquespacio have always drawn their artistic lifeblood from an experimental approach, which is expressed energetically in their design for their studio and home in Valencia.
Partners in life and business, they share free creativity, unbound from the ordinary, fueled by ongoing dialogue with different cultures and people that international collaborations often afford. The home, which is a bit of Art Deco and a bit futurist, is arranged on two floors and preserves its early 20th-century character, which they maintained with the recovery of original elements like the floor, ceiling, and brick walls. The designer duo’s spontaneous, independent style is reinterpreted in an interplay of contrasts, made of powerfully accentuated hues and exaggerated shapes, that give the overall design a new freshness.
The common thread connecting both the studio on the ground floor and the home on the first floor is questioning what is normal. This eccentricity also respects the beauty of the past that the building embodies. The interiors are populated by Mas Creations design collections born of the duo’s eclectic minds, enhancing their living and work experience with an aesthetic that combines 3D technology and craftsmanship.
In the meeting room, a large, pleated curtain and table with a wooden top and trellis legs combine with a micro cement floor with a rough texture. An interior courtyard serves as a transition point between the spaces, which the family uses at the moment both for private and working spaces. On the upper floor, an alternating interplay of shapes – squares, triangles, circles, and semi-circles – are a legacy of their past as graphic designers. Highlights include the clay Cone collection, which the studio designed and made itself, and the Triangle chairs in the living room, positioned around a unique table with a glass top.
The bathroom is attention-grabbing with its saturated yellow total look with handmade tiles and a wall made with the traditional trencadis technique, using randomly arranged ceramic fragments. No less impressive is the master bedroom, with a bed featuring a wraparound semi-dome-shaped headboard to disconnect completely at the end of the day. On the left side, there is also a neon pink meditation corner.
