Recommending party
The project has been submitted by:
FLORES & PRATS Archs.
LOCATION
Country: Spain
City: Terrassa
Address: Calle Guipuzcoa 80
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AUTHOR
Designer or design team architects:
FLORES & PRATS Archs.
DETAILS
Plot Area: 2.270 mq
Gross Area: 13.343 mq
Of which residential: 54% Public/communal areas: 29% Facilities for the public: 9% Business/trade: 8% Offices: -%
Number of residential units: 111 Typology of users: families, old-aged people, students Total building costs Euros: 8.937.927 M€ Building Cost = Total Bulding Cost / Gross Area: 669 €/ mq Floor area ratio = Gross Area / Plot Area: 5,8 mq Work started on date: 2007 Work completion date: 2010
OWNERSHIP
Promoter: Habitatge Terrassa – Municipality of Terrassa Owner: Habitatge Terrassa – Municipality of Terrassa Allotment rule: Annual Incomes < 41.000 €
Reduction cost percentage compared to the market value:
– assignement: 50 %
– rent: 50 %
Description of the project:
Urban Context. Design Approach.
The Building 111 is located on a limit of the city of Terrassa, near Barcelona, facing a natural park which links to the next urban settlement. The centre of this building is a semi-public courtyard, an intermediate space between city and landscape: from the street all the neighbours enter to their homes through this centre of the block, a real place for encounters.
Social sustainability
Being social housing, houses of reduced dimensions (some 60m2 of useful area), the project proposes an extension of the private into communal spaces, which makes houses not just limited to their inner area, but extended into terraces vestibules and patios at the ground floor. This social dimension is a priority in low income housing: providing relational spaces among neighbours, as well as organizing an open plan for the houses, non hierarchical, helping to avoid a difference of gender in the domestic everyday activities. The future of collective housing must aim not to isolate individuals but invite to relate between them. The social part of the houses faces the central courtyard: the building does not just respond to the sun, but also to a social compromise.
Housing proposal
The houses of this block close just two rooms: one bedroom and one bathroom. The rest of the house is a continuous space around a central furniture which concentrates all the electrical household appliances in it. This furniture is located so to organise the trespassing from the more private towards the more public area of the house, articulating the domestic activities of the house around it.
Environmental Sustainability
All the houses of this building have crossed ventilation, good natural light in all its spaces, and shutters that can be projected to protect the interior from direct sun light. The building has roof garden which contains the same vegetal species that grow naturally in the nearby landscape. The roof also contain solar panels to heat water for sanitary use. A system for selective collection of garbage has been installed at the ground floor of the building.
The facades are concrete in situ, giving thermal inertia to the interiors. They were built thanks to a polystyrene formwork, tested here for the first time. These forms were prefabricated in industry to reduce time in construction site. The final result of these mouldings gives a rhythm of light and shadow to the façade that helps the dialogue of the building with the pine forests around it.
