TERRA FORMA. THE BODY DOESN’T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE A PROJECT

The starting point was clear: to create a tribute to women who take care of themselves without reducing their relationship with their bodies to a mirror, a number, or the constant feeling that there is always something left to fix.

I was interested in what a gym could become once we move beyond a culture that has taught us to treat the body as a never-ending project. Better, slimmer, tighter, younger. I wanted to approach it from somewhere else entirely, through health, routine, pleasure, and that one hour of the day that belongs only to us.

I imagined the space almost as an extension of home. Not as a retreat from the world, but as a place where, for a moment, we are free from the obligation of being seen through someone else’s eyes. Earthy tones, wood, stone, curved forms and subdued lighting came naturally. I wasn’t interested in making the interior look “feminine”. Quite the opposite. I wanted it to understand who it was designed for, without having to explain that through colour, decoration or stereotype.

That became the most important part of the project for me. I didn’t want to create another backdrop for the ideal body, but a space for real bodies and real lives. For exercise that isn’t punishment for what we ate, preparation for summer, or yet another obligation to look better. For the simple idea that taking care of ourselves doesn’t have to begin with being dissatisfied with who we are.

The space has since been completed, although the project took a different direction along the way and moved away from the concept I originally developed. What you see here is therefore not a record of the finished interior, but my original response to the brief, with the colours, atmosphere and ideas that defined the project for me from the beginning.

And perhaps that is precisely why it is worth showing. Architecture is not only what eventually gets built. Sometimes, what could have been is worth keeping too.