A 110-square-metre flat in the centre of town. The location is perfect - Paseo Mallorca in Palma, greenery in front of the entrance and the sea a few minutes away. And inside: a kitchen shut into its own room, a living room separate, a dining room a third, and corridors between all of them. The classic layout from the era when every function got its own walls.

The owners, a couple living in Ibiza who wanted a flat so they could spend more time in the city, bought the location first. What drew them to the flat itself came later - when they saw what those walls could become. The job went to the studio "Jaime Salvá Architecture & Interior Design" with one premise: knock down the partitions and gather all of daily life into a single open zone.

One hundred and ten square metres that got bigger without a single added metre. That is the part worth understanding, because it applies anywhere. No floor space was added - the corridors were removed. Circulation zones were cut to a minimum, and every room gained width without gaining square metres.

"The main goal was for the flat to stop functioning as a series of independent rooms. By opening up the layout we got the light to travel further, and the kitchen, dining room and living room to connect far more naturally," explains Jaime Salvá. The three spaces now share the same room, and the only thing visually dividing them is a load-bearing column clad in oak - a boundary that closes nothing.

The island is the real move. The kitchen is oak, with floor-to-ceiling cabinets hiding the appliances and a black light strip marking the room's axis. The island works as a breakfast bar with three high stools with backrests, and from it you can see the whole flat - the dining table on one side, the living room in the depth. The key detail: the island's worktop is the same as the kitchen's, so the two zones read as one piece of furniture rather than two joined elements.

The second element defining the project is the stone wall beside the dining table - one of the few things kept from the old flat. "We worked with few materials and very natural ones, looking for things that age well and bring warmth without burying the space. The existing stone wall seemed particularly interesting to us because it brings texture and connects the new with the history of the flat," says the architect.

In the living room, opposite the L-shaped sofa, a wooden TV unit takes up an entire wall. The only graphic note in the whole flat is the cushions with a palm print; everything else stays in a neutral palette. Outside the window, between the sheer curtains, you can see the palms and trees of Paseo Mallorca - a reminder that the location is not just an address but part of the project.

Architecture that works in silence. The corridor to the sleeping area is resolved with a floor-to-ceiling oak cabinet that hides most of the flat's storage. "In a complete renovation, many of the decisions that change a flat the most are precisely the ones you see the least. Integrating the storage, concealing certain doors and the continuity of the joinery allowed us to achieve much cleaner architecture," says Salvá.

In one bedroom, next to the built-in wardrobe, the work zone is built into the wooden panelling itself - a narrow desk, a black lamp and a minimalist chair under a geometric picture. That is not a home office but a corner that activates when needed and visually disappears when it is not. In the other bedroom, the headboard is upholstered in a tone contrasting with the oak and carries a shelf along its full length, a floating bedside table and a reading corner with an armchair, footrest and floor lamp.

The en-suite bathroom has a wall-hung stone basin, matt black fittings and a round mirror, and a clear glass screen divides the shower without fully closing off the view to the bedroom. The second bathroom has double stone basins, a backlit mirror running the full width, and natural fibre baskets under the counter instead of extra furniture.

Here, renovation usually means more - more cupboards, more furniture, more partitioned rooms to produce one more "room". This flat does the opposite and gains more space. The question it raises is not what it cost, but why our first thought when a flat is cramped is to put something into it rather than take something out.