Updates in post-pandemic exterior design

In the history of design, the focus has not fallen on the exteriors, when we talk about the exterior, we always think of gardens, biophilia, and garden chairs that match the painting on the wall. Now that the pandemic has boosted creativity in the redesign of each living space, the designers of the winning work of the 40th edition of Arco Madrid, took the meaning of open and interiors to a new level with their VIP Lounge ‘Salida’.

After a year and a half of its last edition, the Contemporary Art Fair once again brought together galleries, collectors, professionals and the general public in Madrid, in a new edition influenced by the recent pandemic, being an example of the incredible human capacity to adapt to any situation.

This last year, interior design has experienced revolution after revolution, homes turned into offices and schools, hotels and restaurants reinvented, all transformations that make clear the social nature of human beings and how their ability to adapt has led to the creation of places to maintain an adequate safety distance and create environments in closed spaces that resemble the outdoors.

As if all the experiences lived in the more than 15 months of confinement in a pandemic had been collected and assembled into a puzzle, the VIP Lounge ‘Salida’ was designed under the premise of transforming the rigidity imposed by the safety distance into an idyllic landscape where the furniture blends seamlessly with nature.  This environment is committed to volumetric, clear and powerful furniture, integrating a dreamlike space that reminds of old Nordic fairy tales, it is a space where nature, art and design converge to give life to a new type of place, flooded with well-being and calm, betting on improving the quality of life of its visitors.

Designed by Studio Animal, a team made by Gonzalo Del Val and Toni Gelabert, three key elements were established to be able to give life to ‘Salida’: security, fair context and ‘exteriorism’, being the objective of its design to transform the rigidity imposed by the safe distance in an idyllic landscape where the furniture blends perfectly with nature.

Composed in its entirety of two opposite but complementary spaces: one main, bathed in a dim reddish light that imitates the sunset, along with 100 birch trees that reproduce the magic of a dream forest, and another that recalls dream nights implementing a variety of blue and mustard tones.

‘Salida’ is an extraordinary example of how a space can unite exterior and interior in a harmonious and flexible way, and it is also clear proof of the progressive “exit” of the Covid-19 pandemic that the whole world is experiencing.