31 Columns
Studio Cadena has completed 31 Columns, a project in Medellín organised by a single architectural move, repeated. Two concrete slabs define a tall room, six metres in height; between them stand 31 wooden columns.
The columns are deliberately non-structural. They do not carry the building; they carry the room. Freed from load-bearing duty, they are multiplied across the interior to structure movement, filter light and create a layered space, without the use of walls or partitions. Thick and triangular in section, these wooden columns define the character of the room and shape its atmosphere.
Repetition replaces enclosure. Most architectural elements are omitted, and finishes are kept to a minimum. As one moves through the space, the field produces variation without formal change, creating moments of compression and release, proximity and distance. Seating and circulation settle into the gaps the columns leave.
The space has multiple entry points and is approached from every side with an open perimeter. Oriented towards an open view of the city, the space reads less like an interior than a terrace, despite sitting at the base of a large building in the middle of the city. A marble bar anchors the bakery display, and a large round window provides a view of the production areas at the back; the existing concrete structure is left exposed throughout, revealing the raw shell of the building it occupies.
Used as a café, the project resists what most interiors reach for: elaborate finishes, graphics, display or a borrowed idea of a place. Here, one element, repeated 31 times, does all the architectural work.
