80 (40+40) Social Housing Apartments

The competition before the commission asked for a design of 80 social housing apartments located in the extreme North of Salou. Originally thought to be a new urban mesh which stands out on pre-existing agricultural plots, the new place originates from the wide allotments that contain isolated houses, orthogonally arranged. The proposal wonders about the intermediary spaces, the transitions, the threshold… like a bridge or a link to establish continuity and no stagnation, trying to open significantly and conceptually the limits between different realities. Consequently, the project proposes a pattern with various intervention scales, with a social housing program which develops its relationship proprieties, by building an architecture thought as a support and close to users’ reality. All four-story buildings contain ten apartments on each floor. A faint slope separates the ground floors from the terrain, permitting the entrance of natural light and air in the parking area. In this sloping and honeysuckle covered floor a poplar grove is planted, so that, during the summer, it can provide a shelter from the sun of west. Entries and community spaces are perceived as relationship spaces, intermediate zones between the dwellings and the external space. Therefore, we can conceive the walkway as a transition element, where a corrugated steel mesh responds to the program needs (railings, trellis, balconies, drop by drop irrigation…) with more or less density, allowing vegetable colonizations coupled with poplars in order to refresh some spaces which will be more appreciated for their orientation in the warm seasons. The budget is optimized by presenting only one type of dwelling, which is articulated around a central space where wet areas and installations are concentred. It is an apartment which takes advantage of two opposite orientations and it outlines a transversal sequence of spaces: walkway, house and terrace that provide versatility and adaptation tied to the use and climatic circumstances. The terrace, which extends the space of the house, provides shadows and transparencies suggesting some passive systems of climatic control. The proposal is built with simple, economic and low-maintenance materials and a careful disposition and execution. Materials are shown the way they are and respond to any specific functions, being able to evolve synchronically as time goes by.