The project is located in 'Pere Garau' neighbourhood. The area was formerly characterized by blocks of single family houses with inner courtyards that followed a typical grid plan. Once the district became central in the city, amendments to the urban planning increased the building volumes significantly and changed the typology to collective housing. The project takes part of this transformation by redefining a corner plot, resulting from the addition of two former houses, into a new public housing building.
The building is conceived according to the new volume specified by the urban planning and playing within its established rules: building depth and cantilevers to the street (of which half of its total permitted area can be enclosed by walls). The proposal takes advantage of this situation to generate the mechanisms needed to link the housing with their immediate surroundings through controlled openings 'excavated' in the building mass.
The result is a solid volume with 'excavated' voids, where the openings are presented as scenes stacked upon each other. A small universe of stories organized under no apparent order, and whose arrangement emerges from the dialogue that the building establishes with its urban context.
The different rooms of the houses are arranged along a central stripe containing the service areas. The excavated terraces are the intermediate elements that relate interior and exterior while offering a private scenery that is built-in the facade of each dwelling.
Awards: 1st Prize | Idea Competition. 2008 Shortlisted | XII Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism 2013
