Santos kitchens in tourist apartments, by the designer Ana Montarelo
16 / 07 / 2020
For the designer Ana Montarelo, the kitchen is one of the most important rooms in a house—a vital space for meeting and communication, whether to enjoy cooking or sharing experiences amidst family and friends. This is a philosophy that she has also applied to this interior design project for tourist apartments, where Santos kitchens play a key twofold role: on the one hand, facilitating tasks for users, and on the other hand, giving it a homey and cosy touch.
Ana Montarelo: interior design as stimulation
Ana Montarelo is a designer who was born in Burgos and raised in Segovia. With a passion for everything related to art, beauty, stimulation, precision and comfort, she affirms that the driving force behind her work is imagining and coming up with new ideas, whether they are spaces for homes, retail or commercial interiors.
She began her training as an industrial designer in Segovia and later took up Interior Architecture at the IADE School of Design. After collaborating with different architecture studios both in her city and in Madrid, her passion and enthusiasm for interior design led her to create her own studio in 2003, where she continues to carry out her projects at present.
Her style is defined by the predominance of natural light, the importance of creating a cohesive flow, and everything coming together in the overall design. This translates into natural, elegant, warm and timeless interiors, although she does not shy away from the challenge of working on projects that go against these criteria. As she herself acknowledges, what really matters to her at the end of the day is the users’ satisfaction, which is why the ultimate goal of her work is to create exciting, fresh and bright spaces that are not only comfortable and functional, but also cheerful and optimistic.
Short-term accommodation that feels like home
The Real Segovia Apartments—a tourist apartment complex of superior standard with a floor area of 1300 square metres spread out across four floors, a basement and a terrace—are located on Medina del Campo square, right in the heart of the historic centre of Segovia. The property, the result of retrofitting and repurposing an old office building, has five different-sized apartments per floor, each with its own individual style.
This innovative approach, which targets a younger audience, is based on fusing together the concepts of hotel and home. In this way, users have the typical services expected of traditional hotels at their disposal, while enjoying longer stays as if they were in their own home or holiday home. To reinforce this idea, Ana Montarelo’s studio came up with an open-plan, functional and fun interior design, intermingling different styles within a cohesive whole.
Santos kitchen units: aesthetics, features and versatility
Ana Montarelo chose Santos units to kit out the kitchens due to their aesthetics, features and versatility. On the one hand, she needed reliable, hard-wearing and durable equipment that would stand up to the wear and tear wrought by many different users that change every so often. Moreover, the many options for storage and organisation offered by the brand were invaluable in optimising space.
And on the other hand, Santos kitchen cabinets are characterised by their capacity to adapt to any space thanks to their clean, pure lines. This was a determining factor in this case, as the different areas in each apartment are defined using the units, creating open-plan spaces with no visual barriers. Thus, the minimalist design facilitated the natural fusion of the work, living and rest areas, making it possible to create harmonious, balanced units.
Kitchens with equipment of superior standard
All accommodations at the Real Segovia Apartments come with a Santos kitchen—either with an in-line or L-shaped layout—fitted with everything needed for a tourist apartment of superior standard. In fact, through this project, Ana Montarelo has showed that a small kitchen can also offer great performance despite its limited space.
This is why the lower area of the kitchen was fitted with a hob unit with oven, integrated dishwasher, drawer unit and sink unit. The latter comes with bins for recycling waste and space to store cleaning products. Meanwhile, the drawer unit has full-extension, large-capacity drawers and deep drawers, making it easy to organise and find cutlery, crockery, pots and other kitchen utensils. In some cases, the base units have a row of wall units above them which—aside from housing the canopy hood—offers additional storage capacity.
The plain handle-less fronts contribute towards integrating the kitchen into the architecture and interior design of each apartment. What’s more, the white finish of the cabinets enhance the brightness of the different areas, helping to make them feel bigger. The overall look is clean, serene and elegant, while being warm and welcoming at the same time.
If you would like to receive more information on the project that Ana Montarelo did for Real Segovia Apartments, we invite you to check out this other article which features her interior design for the holiday apartments found on the second floor of the complex.
Kitchen design: Ana Montarelo
Santos distributor: Ceisa
Location: Real Segovia Apartments (Segovia)
Layout: In-line/L-shaped
Santos units: Innsbruck White ELEA
Worktop: Neolith Bombon Polished / Pulpis Silk
Architecture: Tz2 – Trazados Arquitectura
Interior architecture: Ana Montarelo
Photography: Costa Fotógrafo
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