A clay brick floor for a home in Menorca, in collaboration with Anna Mir Studio

If there’s one thing we love at todobarro, it’s collaborating with professionals who are passionate about their craft. Over the years, we’ve cultivated relationships and projects with large, medium, and small studios, collaborating with firms, artists, and designers of all kinds. What we look for in our projects is a shared approach to the process and a common vision for our work. This is certainly true of Anna Mir’s firm. Anna Mir is an interior designer who, in her own words, “creates beautiful and functional spaces through respectful, ethical, and sustainable design.” It’s certainly a mission statement we can wholeheartedly identify with.

For this project, Anna Mir’s studio chose our 20×10 Rectángulo terracotta brick with an Antique texture, in straw color, and 2.1 centimeters thick, to be used as flooring in a renovated home in Menorca. It is a safe and impeccable choice that harmonizes with the other materials and a color palette that reflects the natural surroundings and the essence of Mediterranean architecture.

Interior design at the service of well-being

As Anna Mir explains on her social media, her studio’s vision is for the homes she renovates to invite relaxation and a sense of warmth: “Let your home embrace you, let your pace slow down, and let the noise fade away.” To achieve that sense of tranquility and calm, we must avoid visual fatigue by steering clear of cluttered spaces and materials that are overloaded with information. In this quest for simplicity and minimalism, we often fall into one of the pitfalls of our time: that of a homogeneous, mass-produced design that lacks any distinctive character, fails to capture attention, and could be found anywhere.

This use of materials and design does not have a purely visual effect, as our colleague Marta Sader explains in this article, “Boring and ‘perfect’ design will be the end of us.” In this piece, which delves into the principles of neuroaesthetics—a discipline that analyzes, through neuroscience, art, psychology, and philosophy to analyze the neural foundations of aesthetic experience, Marta cites the findings of neuroaesthetic studies, which conclude that surfaces that are pleasant to the touch create a stimulating and satisfying environment, and that making the most of natural light affects our circadian rhythms. She also notes that natural materials, such as wood or clay, can lower cortisol levels.

In other words, the initial vision expressed in Anna Mir’s design is backed by science. What sets an impersonal, sterile space apart from one that is welcoming and rich in texture and quality of life is a professional team—like the one that worked on this case—that knows how to carefully select the right pieces and materials for each project.