{"id":58539,"date":"2026-03-01T17:06:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T17:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/susanna-cots-la-interioridad-como-arquitectura\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T10:55:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T10:55:55","slug":"susanna-cots-interiority-as-architecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/susanna-cots-interiority-as-architecture\/","title":{"rendered":"Susanna Cots: interiority as architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some trajectories are built through projects; others through a gaze. Susanna Cots<\/a> belongs to the latter. From her first studio in l\u2019Empord\u00e0 in 2001 to her international expansion \u2014 with a second office in Hong Kong in 2014 \u2014 her work has evolved as a continuous exploration of emotional wellbeing. As a tangible experience: light, silence, memory, and perception.<\/p>\n\n

Few interior designers in Spain have developed a language as recognisable and coherent as Susanna\u2019s. Her work has been acknowledged both nationally and internationally for its aesthetic and conceptual sensitivity. In 2026, Susanna celebrates the 25th anniversary of her studio, and at Ex\u00e1gono Magazine we celebrate it with this monograph dedicated to her, her practice, and some of her most iconic projects.<\/p>\n\n

See all the projects included in the monograph<\/a><\/p>\n\n

For several months, Susanna shared with us weekly texts she called\u00a0Kando<\/em>, a Japanese word that defines \u201cthe profound satisfaction and emotion felt when encountering something of exceptional value.\u201d These texts condense her inner universe. An intimate series in which the designer steps away from professional discourse to explore what sustains her practice: lived life.<\/p>\n\n

We have allowed ourselves to return to those texts and read them again. This is a journey through the ideas that nourish her way of understanding spaces \u2014 and our way of inhabiting them.<\/p>\n\n

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Natural Empord\u00e0 Project.<\/strong>\u00a0This house in l\u2019Empord\u00e0 recovers its centenary identity through Susanna Cots\u2019 intervention, with spaces for connection and intimacy. See full article<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Natural Empord\u00e0 Project.<\/strong> See full article<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Everyday life<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The deepest architecture is not built with matter but with gestures. Susanna Cots places the origin of her sensitivity in what remains unseen: the invisible rituals that sustain daily life. The crumpled blanket, coffee in silence, the pause before the day begins. Small choreographies that build identity. \u201cThis is where beauty hides, in what seems insignificant but accompanies you every morning, shaping and giving intention to the day ahead. That is the feeling I seek to experience every day: in my family, in my work, in my designs. Because it is authentic,\u201d she tells us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her gaze, the home is above all an intimate refuge, and everyday life becomes a root. \u201cLet us be grateful to be part of that imperfection that makes us more authentic, more ourselves, more profound. We are what we live in every instant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Light<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If there is a common thread in Susanna Cots\u2019 work, it is light as an emotional language. A living material that accompanies the rhythm of the body, that activates, calms, or gathers. Light as the choreography of the day. \u201cYour body responds almost automatically, as if the sun held the key that activates your entire system,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n\n\n

From the clarity of dawn to the domestic dimness of night, the designer describes a dance of illuminations that shape moods. Cold light that drives action. Warm light that gathers. Indirect light that suspends time. \u201cI have learned to domesticate light, to shape it so it can dialogue with space and emotions.\u201d In her creative universe, light accompanies us continuously, though in ever-changing forms.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Ibiza Spring Project.<\/strong> Susanna Cots brings the spring of Ibiza into this Mediterranean home, opening it to the island\u2019s light and nature. See full article<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ibiza Spring Project.<\/strong> See full article<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ibiza Spring Project.<\/strong> See full article<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Essence<\/h2>\n\n\n

Speaking of essence without falling into rhetoric is one of Susanna\u2019s enduring obsessions. In contrast to the contemporary trivialisation of the word, she returns it to its original territory: the unrepeatable, the non-replicable, what cannot become a trend. \u201cEssence will never be a trend,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe essence of a space is its deep breath. It is the silent echo of those who inhabit it. The harmony between outside and inside, between what has been lived and what is yet to come. It is not only what we see, but what we feel when we are there: a heartbeat that welcomes and accompanies, that holds our memories and allows us to simply be, in the stillness of the everyday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

Susanna speaks of essence as a great inner search. \u201cWhen I think about essence, I imagine a space that speaks of you without saying your name.\u201d In her approach, essence is built over time: memories, rituals, belonging, safety, connection with the natural and the vital. A slow architecture that seeks permanence rather than impact.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Les Clarisses Hotel Boutique Project.<\/strong> Susanna Cots turns silence into a sensory experience in the Les Clarisses boutique hotel. See full article<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Les Clarisses Hotel Boutique Project.<\/strong> See full article<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

The architecture of scent<\/h2>\n\n\n

There are invisible dimensions that define spaces. Smell is one of them. Susanna approaches it as an architectural discipline: layers, depth, memory. Like a perfume unfolding in notes. \u201cA scent is like a book, like a space, like a soul.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top notes as threshold. Heart notes as embrace. Base notes as persistent memory. Scent understood as an emotional structure that builds identity. \u201cI have always believed that smell is one of the pillars of spatial design \u2014 invisible yet decisive, capable of transforming a room into a refuge or into a memory.\u201d Designing spaces is also designing memories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perception<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Perception appears as an intimate compass. Rather than measuring, it orients. For Susanna, spaces are not understood \u2014 they are felt. And that perception changes over time, because we change. \u201cHomes are not monuments; they are living beings that grow, adapt, and evolve with us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

Perception as pause, as interruption of noise, as an instant of awareness. \u201cStopping to enjoy, to understand, and to understand yourself.\u201d Space thus becomes a temporal mirror: it reflects who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Copper House Project.<\/strong> Susanna Cots explores the relationship between matter and perception in this home where copper acts as a guiding thread. See full project<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Copper House Project.<\/strong> See full project<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Change<\/h2>\n\n\n

If perception opens the gaze, change displaces it. In Susanna Cots\u2019 thinking, change is continuity. A natural flow comparable to the cycles of nature. \u201cLike a landscape that evolves with the seasons, the home should reflect our vital flow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homes as open diaries, where every transformation adds layers of meaning. Nothing definitive, everything alive. \u201cHomes are not made to be forever.\u201d Accepting impermanence as a form of freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n

The invisible<\/h2>\n\n\n

At the end of the journey appears the concept closest to her professional practice: the invisible. That which is not shown but sustains the experience \u2014 light, silence, noble materials, atmospheres. Elements that do not need explanation; they are perceived. \u201cMaking the complex simple, making it unnoticeable,\u201d Susanna says.<\/p>\n\n\n

Design as a silent act, as structured intuition, as emotional geometry. \u201cA design that works with invisible elements in favour of your wellbeing.\u201d Here the essence of her interior architecture is revealed: an aesthetic that seeks connection beyond protagonism.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Autumn in the North Project:<\/strong> a home without walls where layout builds a dynamic of connection. See full article<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Autumn in the North Project.<\/strong> See full article<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Evolution<\/h2>\n\n\n

The cycle closes with an inevitable word: evolution, as acquired awareness. A journey from sensitivity towards clarity. \u201cEvolution is the journey from hypersensitivity to consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

Light reappears as both origin and destination \u2014 a language that structures her trajectory and runs through her projects. \u201cBecause light does not only illuminate: it transforms.\u201d Evolution understood as refinement rather than accumulation.<\/p>\n\n

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The Eleven House Project:<\/strong>\u00a0Susanna Cots\u2019 shared home in the heart of l\u2019Empord\u00e0.
See full article<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The Eleven House Project.<\/strong>\u00a0Alex and Susanna beside the fragment of Peratallada\u2019s medieval wall, discovered during construction. See full article<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The Eleven House Project.<\/strong> See full article<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Susanna Cots\u2019 work is built from the inside out<\/h2>\n\n

Susanna Cots proposes an attitude: listening before designing, feeling before building, removing before adding. Her work \u2014 and projects such as\u00a0The Eleven House<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 emerges from that conviction: that space can be refuge, awareness, and memory at once. At a time when architecture tends toward noise, her trajectory insists on the opposite: lowering the volume to hear the essential again. Her work proposes a way of being in the world \u2014 and also a way of inhabiting it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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