Spanish furniture designer Fernando Abellanas has carved out a new creative home in a section of Valencia that isn’t the typical artist neighborhood: he’s built a studio affixed to a highway underpass. The workspace is complete with a desk and chair, as well as shelves stocked with homey framed artworks and potted succulents―all attached to the highway’s cement framework. The floor and walls function as a self-operated horizontal elevator. Using mechanics adapted from a metal dolly, Abellanas hand-cranks his way to his studio, completing the picture of a cozy four-walled workspace.
As he described in an interview with le cool Valencia, Abellanas has a lifelong interest in refuges―locating peace and solitude in unexpected places, like under the dinner table as as a child, and now, hidden underneath the whir of traffic. The designer is also inspired by the way people with very limited resources use neglected spaces to create homes.
The studio hasn’t been sanctioned by the city of Valencia, so its exact location is a secret, and it will remain intact for as long as Abellanas is able to keep it there.
