Store With A Gap: Studio Cadena opens up a former private building in Medellín

A former private building in El Poblado, one of Medellín’s busiest neighborhoods, has been converted into a mixed-use project with a cafe, retail space and dance studio. The project, designed by Studio Cadena and named Store With A Gap, is built around a single gesture: rather than expanding the existing structure, the architects removed a large section of its front and inserted a perforated metal screen in its place. The Architect’s Newspaper published the story on August 7, 2026, and points to AN Interior for additional images and details.

Carving into the existing form

According to the Architect’s Newspaper, the project’s main move is a curved section taken out of the building’s front. The removed portion has been replaced with a perforated metal screen arranged in staggered columns, which allows partial views into the retail area from the street. The screen gives the building a layered front edge: it is not a conventional glass storefront, and it does not present the building as a closed private volume either.

The act of taking away space is central to how the building works. By pulling the street edge inward, Studio Cadena created what the coverage calls a pocket of public space in front of the structure. That makes the project a case of adaptive reuse driven by subtraction, rather than by the more common approach of adding floors, extensions or new cladding to an older building.

A cafe, a shop and a dance studio under one roof

The building now holds three programs that were not originally planned together: a coffee shop, retail space and a dance studio. The intervention was not set up as a single-use conversion. Instead, the building is meant to hold the three activities within one volume while keeping a degree of separation between them.

The design response was to open the structure up rather than reorganize it through heavy internal additions. The gap cut into the front helps connect the busy street to the interior, while the metal screen keeps the commercial spaces visible but not fully exposed. Because the original building was private and not conceived for mixed uses, the adaptation required a different approach than a standard storefront renovation.

A more public street front in El Poblado

El Poblado contains some of Medellín’s most active commercial, retail and nightlife areas, and its streets are used intensely across the day. In that context, the removal of a piece of the building reads as an unusual public gesture: a private property located on a dense urban block gains a visible opening that offers part of its street frontage back to the surrounding city.

The Architect’s Newspaper notes that the building reads as civic from the outside, a quality that sets it apart from typical ground-floor retail in the area. That civic character, combined with the new gap and perforated screen, makes the project stand out as an example of how existing private buildings can be adapted in ways that contribute to the public realm without changing their ownership or core function.

A practice working between New York and Bogotá

Studio Cadena is an architecture practice based in Brooklyn that operates between New York and Bogotá. The firm is led by Benjamin Cadena, and the Medellín project connects that cross-border practice to a dense urban context in Colombia.

The project also fits into a broader category of architecture where reuse and reprogramming take priority over new construction. Adding a dance studio, a cafe and retail space to a building that was not designed to hold them is a logistical challenge because the three uses have different spatial needs, noise levels and public access patterns. Studio Cadena’s solution, according to the published account, was to avoid additional volume and instead manipulate the existing form and its relation to the street.

What remains unconfirmed

The Architect’s Newspaper article does not specify the original building’s construction date, total floor area, client or budget. It also does not name the contractors, engineers or specialist consultants involved in the adaptation. The mention of AN Interior suggests that additional project images and details are available there, but the full technical scope of the intervention is not yet public from this short account.

Until more documentation is released, the project is best understood through its spatial concept and its relationship to El Poblado’s street life. Readers who want to follow the project further should check AN Interior for the expanded version of the feature and look for more published material from Studio Cadena about the design process.

Source: The Architect’s Newspaper, “Studio Cadena adapts a private building in Medellín, Colombia into a cafe, retail space, and dance studio,” August 7, 2026, https://www.archpaper.com/2026/08/studio-cadena-store-with-a-gap/