carrer de lluçà
This renovation project emerged from a competition aimed at revitalizing a historic six-story apartment building in Barcelona's Les Corts District. Aiming to reconnect the building's previously isolated blind wall facade to the surrounding streetscape while reconfiguring the domestic spaces within. This transformation seeks to enhance residents' quality of living and place the building in a continuum with the neighbourhood's urban fabric. The project aims to address issues of densification by adapting existing blunt architectural elements to provide new dynamic living conditions.
The project is an approach of addition through reduction, creating voids and re-layering elements to foster a more open and connected environment. The blind wall, a remnant of a neighbouring unit demolished in the 1960s, presents a unique challenge that has informed the design. The defining feature of the facade is an exposed, light core, which serves as a central element in the overall composition.
The ground floor houses a commercial program, the walls of which are treated as the datum on which the residential units rest. Clad in a series of brushed steel panels, resting slightly above the ground line. This material condition occludes and protects the ground floor whilst reflecting the qualities of the street onto the passerby.
Opening up the light core creates an exposed courtyard element with an entryway for the residence so as to no longer be forced to enter through the commercial function of the building. This door leads to the stairwell core. The ground treatment in the now opened 'courtyard entry' is an irregular stone pavement extending into the street.
The composition of windows on the residential floors focuses on continuity to the surrounding urban conditions. Through these openings, the internal spaces are reframed with an indoor-outdoor dynamic. Outdoor balcony spaces take advantage of the internal cores set back to generate a new domestic condition that draws from the city's vernacular without protruding from the facade's boundary line. This coincides with an internal rearrangement of walls for reconditioned living spaces that bring the outside in. The master balcony corners the building and visually bridges the old facade to the new.
This renovation project emerged from a competition aimed at revitalizing a historic six-story apartment building in Barcelona's Les Corts District. Aiming to reconnect the building's previously isolated blind wall facade to the surrounding streetscape while reconfiguring the domestic spaces within. This transformation seeks to enhance residents' quality of living and place the building in a continuum with the neighbourhood's urban fabric. The project aims to address issues of densification by adapting existing blunt architectural elements to provide new dynamic living conditions.
The project is an approach of addition through reduction, creating voids and re-layering elements to foster a more open and connected environment. The blind wall, a remnant of a neighbouring unit demolished in the 1960s, presents a unique challenge that has informed the design. The defining feature of the facade is an exposed, light core, which serves as a central element in the overall composition.
The ground floor houses a commercial program, the walls of which are treated as the datum on which the residential units rest. Clad in a series of brushed steel panels, resting slightly above the ground line. This material condition occludes and protects the ground floor whilst reflecting the qualities of the street onto the passerby.
Opening up the light core creates an exposed courtyard element with an entryway for the residence so as to no longer be forced to enter through the commercial function of the building. This door leads to the stairwell core. The ground treatment in the now opened 'courtyard entry' is an irregular stone pavement extending into the street.
The composition of windows on the residential floors focuses on continuity to the surrounding urban conditions. Through these openings, the internal spaces are reframed with an indoor-outdoor dynamic. Outdoor balcony spaces take advantage of the internal cores set back to generate a new domestic condition that draws from the city's vernacular without protruding from the facade's boundary line. This coincides with an internal rearrangement of walls for reconditioned living spaces that bring the outside in. The master balcony corners the building and visually bridges the old facade to the new.
The project is an approach of addition through reduction, creating voids and re-layering elements to foster a more open and connected environment. The blind wall, a remnant of a neighbouring unit demolished in the 1960s, presents a unique challenge that has informed the design. The defining feature of the facade is an exposed, light core, which serves as a central element in the overall composition.
The ground floor houses a commercial program, the walls of which are treated as the datum on which the residential units rest. Clad in a series of brushed steel panels, resting slightly above the ground line. This material condition occludes and protects the ground floor whilst reflecting the qualities of the street onto the passerby.
Opening up the light core creates an exposed courtyard element with an entryway for the residence so as to no longer be forced to enter through the commercial function of the building. This door leads to the stairwell core. The ground treatment in the now opened 'courtyard entry' is an irregular stone pavement extending into the street.
The composition of windows on the residential floors focuses on continuity to the surrounding urban conditions. Through these openings, the internal spaces are reframed with an indoor-outdoor dynamic. Outdoor balcony spaces take advantage of the internal cores set back to generate a new domestic condition that draws from the city's vernacular without protruding from the facade's boundary line. This coincides with an internal rearrangement of walls for reconditioned living spaces that bring the outside in. The master balcony corners the building and visually bridges the old facade to the new.