The cORNEr bar

Bar renovation

Julia Fariña Masset

Jorge Díaz Estudio

Playa de Las Américas, Arona

Tenerife, ES

#renovation

2016 — 2018

Built

José Ramón Oller

Standing on a busy corner of Paseo Chinyero – a pedestrian boulevard lined with palm trees at the heart of Playa de las Américas’ Golden Mile –, Corner Bar required a comprehensive refurbishment to renew its premises. Our intervention in this establishment (a small space that boasts a generous and splendidly situated terrace) entailed the opportunity to fulfill the developers’ wish: projecting a confidently modern image to match the establishment’s privileged location.

The sun shines intensely on the southern part of Tenerife for most of the year. It is advisable to seek protection from it during the middle of the day. Yet, the wind can be uncomfortable in the winter, prompting us to look for both shade and sunshine to protect ourselves with a structure that would cover the open space without obstructing it, somehow sheltering ourselves as if wearing a straw hat.

We laid out the project by stitching the corner space with a shade of woven strings that reproduce a microclimate by filtering the sunlight. These ropes extend towards the narrow interior and duplicate across the mirroring glass cover. Thus, a woven pergola lets the sun and sea breeze in gently that can be adjusted at will. We also carried out a thorough update of the kitchen and toilets, which we developed as an adjacent volume, burying it underneath the garden and providing it with natural light embrasures. We designed the bar area, which we imagined from the start as a clean volume – a lacquered steel sheet and white marble unit.

The project culminates in a contemporary image that finds inspiration in the surrounding environment: light‐projecting white surfaces, the diverse colors and textures of pozzolan sand‐gravel, which are found everywhere in the local landscape, and the cane and wicker works of the traditional crafts.