The housing block on Lope de Vega street in the Pueblo
Nuevo neighbourhood in Barcelona inserts into a group of
three buildings in the Urban Development Unit no. 9 (UA9),
which were carried out by the same developer Habitat
S.A.: Hotel Me, Hines Offices and Apartments. The project
of the UA9’s specific urban plan, as well as the Hotel Me,
was designed by our studio in collaboration with French
architect Dominique Perrault.
The housing block is located perpendicular to Lope de Vega
street and opposite the Antic Camí de Valencia square,
occupying the southern end of the site. The building
typology for the project is for a linear, free-standing
volume. The facade that faces towards the main street is
resolved through garden boxes planted with red
bougainvillea, located parallel to the pavement and outside
of the galvanised steel fence that wraps around the
building. The exterior garden boxes allude to the presence
of the private garden in the interior of the block.
We have positioned the main entrance on this facade,
below a high metal and wood pergola planted with
creepers. From the entrance a linear stretch of cobbles and
grass, running parallel to the interior facade, separates the
pedestrian access zone to the building from the rest of the
garden. The other areas of the interior block, the private
pool and the children’s play area insert into the scheme as
closed spaces according to their orthogonal geometries and
functionally defined within the more irregular and
spontaneous lawn and vegetation.
The functional programme defined for the property is for
88 apartments distributed around two stairwells: A and B.
The first stairwell is composed of 30 three or four bedroom
apartments earmarked for sale, while the second contains
58 one or two bedroom rental apartments. The basement
contains two parking floors and service and lumber rooms.
On the ground floor the apartments open to the garden and
the public square with courtyards that act as filters
between the exterior and interior.
Given the wide variety of surfaces of the apartments and
the urban nature and typology of the building, a clear
distributional layout has been chosen.
The central circulation corridor distributes and divides the
floor plan longitudinally and symmetrically in two creating
two main fronts: the first open to the northeast toward the
Collserola mountain and the interior garden and the second
to the southeast, towards the sea and the public square.
The flats have been distributed locating the service spaces,
kitchens, toilets and storage towards the centre of the
floor plan, while all the main rooms are situated along the
façades enabling direct access, through the floor-to-ceiling
French windows, to the spacious exterior balconies. The
living areas incorporate a large horizontally elongated
window positioned so occupants can see out when sitting.
The composition of the openings has allowed us to
physically and visually enlarge the dimensions of the
spaces.
The geometry of the floor plan composition of the façade
has been defined according to an alternating rhythm: the
line of the façade ebbs and flows rhythmically towards and
away from the boundary stipulated by town planning
regulations. This façade system creates larger and more
intimate exterior spaces on the balconies, which are
connected with the living areas.
On the two top floors this scheme is emphasised and
enhanced resulting in setbacks that become large terraces
which are open to the exterior and covered using wooden
pergolas.
The façade is clad in a ventilated skin of black stone. Its
irregular texture and chromatic changes emphasise the
natural essence of the material.
The most exterior skin is composed of sliding aluminium
brise-soleil panels, which when used create dynamic and
varying reconfigurations of the facade.
The setbacks from the line of the facade, the irregular
composition of the windows, the surface of the natural
stone, the semi-transparent wooden pergolas and the
sliding panels, combined with the changing light angles,
the shadows and reflections and any number of
atmospheric variations generate a static and fragmented
image of the block.
These resources have allowed us to dematerialise the
volume and fuse it with the organic surroundings of the
garden, which counterpoints and dialogues with the
precision of the public spaces and the nearby buildings.
The scheme achieves further continuity through contrasts
arising from the distributive precision of the floor plans
and their shifting boundaries.
Also, from below looking upwards, the numerous setbacks
and pergolas break the upper line of the façade and create
a more dynamic visual relationship of the block with the
large swathes of open sky that wrap around the building.
Virginia Figueras, Franco Corada
Architects: Virginia Figueras Costa, Franco Corada –
Corada Figueras Arquitectos SLP
(coradafigueras@coac.net)
Photos: Jordi Sarrá; Jordi Bernadó
Corada Figueras Arquitectos in Barcelona
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- Rita Capezzuto
- 31 August 2009