La concepció de l’edifici i el disseny dels diversos elements responen a la peculiar condició dels seus usuaris, els infants. Es tracta d’una capsa suspesa sobre el terreny i directament relacionada amb l’arenal que hi ha a sota. L’accés té lloc per una llarga rampa que penetra dins l’edifici, continua baixant fins al nivell del jardí i arriba fins al banc de sorra, un segon clot dins el primer. Les obertures ocupen totes les cares de la capsa i generen una noció isòtropa de l’espai en què l’interior es relaciona amb tots els elements de l’entorn natural, de manera que les pautes d’orientació tradicional tendeixen a desaparèixer. L’interior és viscut així com un espai lleuger i unitari, on la referència del cel és equivalent a la referència de l’arenal. Les distribucions interiors estan fetes amb uns armaris vinculats a les cares del contenidor: les obertures, l’entrada, el pla del sostre, el terra.

L’hotel és situat a la cantonada formada pel passeig de Mossèn Verdaguer i l’avinguda de Pau Casals, dues artèries de trànsit importants de la ciutat. El solar que ocupa, de 1.000 metres quadrats, havia de tancar una illa de cases amb construccions entre mitgeres. El plantejament del projecte parteix de la voluntat de no completar l’illa de cases de forma urbanísticament convencional, i referir-se al paisatge de mitgeres dels carrers de l’entorn com a qualificador de l’espai urbà. Així, el nou hotel no rebleix el solar disponible, sinó que adopta una configuració en la qual les mitgeres internes del mateix hotel, convertides en elements estructurals, queden deliberadament a la vista i construeixen la imatge de l’edifici i la seva organització interna. La possibilitat d’incorporar les parets mitgeres a la part vista de l’edifici porta també a emprar-les com a components de l’espai interior. El gàlib del solar és ocupat per dos cossos més estrets, entrecreuats, que afavoreixen l’aplicació d’aquest dispositiu. Les habitacions, a les tres darreres plantes, ja no requereixen un tractament específic per les testeres, com passa en les tipologies hoteleres convencionals.

The project fundamentally poses a question: how do you make a house with a garden in a garden city? For this reason, the proposal is for a house in which its structure blends in with the garden through the construction of an ambivalent metallic pergola of vegetation, allowing the garden to enter the interior of the house. On the other hand, with the construction of this vegetal pergola, the house is freed from the condition of a finished object because it will be able to grow as a garden does. The house is conceived as an unfinished project. The layout of the house responds to the desire to enhance the crossed views from the interior rooms towards the open courtyards in the garden resulting from the setback between the habitable modules that integrate the building. These are juxtaposed transversally to the dominant dimension of the plot, each one of them defined by the relationship between the 4x15 m slabs. The load-bearing structure is formed by a series of metal beams supported on metal pillars also arranged longitudinally on the plot. Of the six roof slabs, three are supported on the beams and three are suspended. The height of the roofs allows light and zenithal views to enter even the most internal areas of the house. The generous height of the beams contributes to greater privacy, making it difficult to see the whole complex from the upper floors of the neighbouring buildings. The system of vertical enclosures of exposed brickwork consolidates privacy with respect to the neighbours and also between the parts of the house which, due to their position, face each other. In addition, as their position does not coincide with the limits of the slabs and roofs, interior-exterior transition spaces are generated, enriching and singularising the relationship between the different areas and the garden. This brickwork undergoes folds and interruptions in its course, exposing other layers such as the cork thermal insulation. The perimeter fence of the plot is made up of a buried concrete base from which metal pillars emerge to guide large ceramic pieces supported on them. The absence of contact between these pieces produces a relief effect on the heavy nature of the ceramic, and even more so if we take into account that in this case a large format panel is used. The result is an economical design of ‘prefabricated’ construction to cover a significant length of perimeter. With this solution it is also possible to comply with the regulations. The fence can be considered as a lattice. Ceramic tiles are also used in the interior of the house, with a single 30x60 cm porcelain tile in greenish grey being chosen for the flooring throughout the house. It is made up of garden patches of different proportions, emphasising the dissolution of the space towards the outside. As the pavement goes beyond the enclosing limits, the house appropriates garden patches of different proportions, emphasising the dissolution of the space towards the outside. The same ceramic tile becomes the cladding of the interior vertical walls, as if the floor were folded up to climb up the walls, reaching different heights to form a plinth, a fireplace base, or an entire surface in the bathrooms and kitchen. The use of ceramic in the project is accentuated by the nostalgic connotation that this material has with the person for whom the house is being built, given that he dedicated an important part of his professional life to working in a vault. This condition characterised the application of ceramic components as a personal requirement of the client. In Garden House 03, ceramics not only physically constructs the project but is also the building material for reconstructing fragments of nostalgia.

The house is planned for a steeply sloping plot of land on a developed hillside on the outskirts of Igualada. The main direction of the plot is west-east, with the pedestrian and vehicular access at the top (to the east). The views are magnificent. Mobility, due to the topography, is complicated. Both factors determine the design of the house. In effect, the house can be understood as the constructive translation of a descending pedestrian route in three sections, from the level of the road to the wooded area that is preserved in the unbuilt part of the plot. This route, which is possible via the roof, allows one to enjoy the views along the way and, at the end, the entrance to the house is through the same hallway that is accessed from the car park. It is therefore a walkable roof despite being sloped. From the hallway to the master bedroom, located just below it, the privacy of the living areas increases as the height decreases. The living room is located in the second section of this route, providing it with the most impressive views. Structurally, the house functions in its entirety as a bent tube in which the two ends are embedded in the ground and the rest is cantilevered. Specifically, it is a tube made of metal latticework. This latticework is designed to be externally clad with perfectly reflective stainless steel panels. The character of the holes made in the panels contributes to the constructive-programmatic integration of the whole. CONSTRUCTION SYSTEMS The Garden House 096 Project is materially developed from two fundamental construction systems: structure and façade. Both have definitively influenced the final form of the building; that is to say, we can affirm that the final formal result responds absolutely to the structural and constructional needs. - Structure The shape of the space designed to adapt to the slope, the regulations and the views, gives shape to the proposed structure: a box girder that rotates on itself, developed by means of a metal bar structure, anchored to the ground at the upper end and supported on the ground by two pillars at the other end. Apart from the defined structure, the work is built with foundations and retaining walls with reinforced concrete in situ, ceilings above and below the box girder with composite metal decking and a layer of reinforced concrete compression. The rest of the work is dry construction. - Prefabricated Façade As for the façade, a prefabricated one is proposed consisting of the following construction elements: Supply and assembly of a multilayer opaque façade mounted on site, consisting of: external skin in horizontal Formawall 1000 panels, in 1,000 mm wide modules formed by two sheets of micro-galvanised steel, 0.8 mm thick, suitably shaped by injection moulding, forming a total thickness of 50 mm. The finish on the visible exterior face is Kynarcolor, the finish on the exterior face is standard colour embossed polychrome, with a coefficient K = 0.38 Kcal/m2/ºC. The joints between panels are sealed on both sides and are completely watertight. Inner skin formed by plasterboard soffit cladding on galvanised steel sheet framing with profiles between 75 and 85 mm wide, placed every 40 cm, insulation with semi-rigid glass wool (MW) boards 50 mm thick >=1.45 m2K/W, covered with two mechanically fixed 13 mm thick laminated plasterboards. Two boards are used to obtain better thermal inertia. All openings, side jambs, upper and lower finishes are finished with ‘alucobond’ multilayer aluminium sheet, adapting to the different shapes.

The project is initially considered by understanding its immediate environment and its relationship with the city and the landscape. On a city scale, we understand Rubí as a city the growth of which has been supported by a geographical line formed by the stream and the foot of a small set of mountains. The project is located on this line but not immersed in a consolidated urban terrain, but at that point where the line gives up its firmness to become incorporated into the landscape. In this way, it invites you to direct your gaze towards the green of the stream. On the scale of the site and the immediate surroundings, it is punctuated in a plot of an industrial estate, where it forms part of a row of warehouses. With respect to this row, the offices are located at the end, giving themselves immediately in contact with the trees and the green. Once again, the look at the landscape is reaffirmed. Considering that the programme of the project is offices in the middle of an industrial estate, it is proposed to enhance through the elements of the façade to avoid the gaze facing the buildings and all the implicit activity of the estate. It is interesting to look at the landscape. It is proposed to work with different flat and non-flat prefabricated parts. The relationship between these pieces is what will allow us, not only the existence of different types of void, but also to control and direct the visions. At the same time, it allows us to differentiate systems for each façade, according to the needs of each one and the proximity to the landscape. The arrangement of these non-flat parts in plan establishes an exterior-interior relationship, incorporating small exterior spaces into the offices and projecting to the central core. The floor plan starts from the core where all the services, community and private, of each office are accumulated. The treatment of this core is worked on as another part of the façade, as a public part, so that the space proper to the offices wanders between two skins, which due to their own thickness become filters, filters between interior and exterior, and between public and private.

The project presented began when Manresa City Council organised a competition to rethink the internal functioning of its current building. The main objective is to make it more functional while ensuring compliance with all current regulations. And that is why it proposes that the required objectives be achieved by means of the location of a new vertical communications core attached to the rear façade; and, incidentally, the rear façade of this building, the only one that is currently in very poor condition, will be restored. ‘The old can be new’ In the project for the remodelling of Manresa Town Hall, the new vertical communication core necessary for the internal functioning of the building, by being located on the rear façade, must also resolve the enclosure of the building, currently in ruins. The new enclosure that we propose is not intended to be understood as an addition from the outside, but as a material continuity of the façade itself, which occasionally adopts certain geometries. That is why it is proposed to construct it by cladding the base structure with construction systems that are technologically contemporary, but which at the same time are in material dialogue with the existing building and the old town where it is located: a curtain wall with a simply plastered finish and, occasionally, glass. ‘Occasional Geometries’ The enclosure that will delimit the space occupied by the staircase, the lift, the viewing points that have emerged from the rooms at certain points, the existing installations and the possible ones, will adapt its form to the occupied and necessary spaces, avoiding the automatic generation of empty spaces. The support structure for the stairs and landings, which is nothing more than the triangularised façade itself, is supported on one side by the ground and anchored to the building on the other by means of new frames built around the old windows, which in this way also move closer to the new limits of the façade. Only the spatial needs posed by the programme and the requirements of the structure have been taken into account when defining the ideal shape of the new enclosure, thus generating a geometry for the occasion. Landscape hall We understood Manresa as a city that one day was established on a hill on the banks of the river Cardener, precisely opposite the mountains of Montserrat. We observed that the Town Hall building is located almost at one end of the platform that, occupied by the old town, overlooks the river and faces Montserrat. The main façade dominates the main square and places the building at the end of the old town's routes - and it is the rear façade which, occupying the end of what we are mentioning, dominates the descent of the topography towards the river in broad strokes. Placing the new communications hub of the town hall building at its rear façade, resolving its finish and taking into account its location in relation to the building, the municipality and the territory, has allowed us to concentrate the tensions of its location in the design of this piece: continuity with the old town and precipitation towards the landscape. The proposed scale can be understood as pieces of these routes through the old town, probably the final ones, which, crossing the town hall building, run through it while extending beyond it in the form of cantilevers towards the river. A panoramic staircase, an intervention between the city and the territory. CONSTRUCTION SYSTEMS The New Access and Façade Project for Manresa Town Hall is materially developed from two fundamental construction systems for the project: structure and façade. Both have definitely influenced the final form of the building; that is, we can affirm that the final formal result absolutely responds to the structural and constructional needs. The shape of the façade responds to the shape of the structure; and the shape of the structure responds directly to a three-dimensional diagram of forces that resolves the balance between the structure of the Town Hall building itself, the new staircase slabs and the new façade. - Structure The ideal solution for constructing the structure is a system of metal bars and joints. The desire to protect the structure from the exterior and to construct the new façade with technologically contemporary multilayer panels led to a redesign of the metal nodes, ensuring that, due to their shape, they would always remain inside the building, behind the new façade. The nodes are thus conceived as ‘shields’ of welded metal sheets joined at the points of intersection of the bars. The desire to achieve a simple construction process using simple pieces that in turn respond to the complex geometry of the façade, leads to the idea of constructing these nodes in phases: in the first phase, each bar will have only one of the sheet metal faces of the node, hence the arrow-shaped bars that allow for an initial assembly with the bars at their tips; and in a second phase, redesigned on site, these nodes will be completed with the necessary connecting plates. - Curtain wall façade with plaster finish As for the façade, the desire to achieve a multilayer panel with the same roughcast finish as the rest of the old façade of the Town Hall led us to develop the following construction sequence: Assembly of a multilayer opaque façade assembled on site, consisting of an initial skin in Formawall 1000 Horizontal Panel, in 1,000 mm wide modules formed by two sheets of extra-flat galvanised steel, 0.8 mm thick on the inside and 0.6 mm thick on the outside, with a suitable additional central core of injected polyurethane, forming a total thickness of 50 mm. The finish on the visible inner face is Kynarcolor, the finish on the inner face is standard colour embossed Policolor, with a coefficient K = 0.38 Kcal/m2/ºC. The outer skin is finished with the STO system. Omega-shaped galvanised steel profiles are placed on top of the Formawall panel and the rigid fibreglass and resin panels, 10 mm thick, are fixed directly to them. The joints between panels and corners are treated with resin and fibreglass paste (the same material as the panels). Alkali-resistant reinforcement mesh is installed to provide anti-cracking and impact resistance. STO cement-free, elastic, anti-cracking, rough-finish thin-layer finishing mortar. · The windows. Installation of CW Premier series curtain walls, four-sided structural silicone type, made in prefabricated modules with a self-supporting structure forming a grid in extruded aluminium profiles, hidden from the outside. Includes anchors, joints, seals... In vision areas with 100% impact, includes double insulating glass made up of 6 mm thick COOL-LITE KN 169 outer glass with 61% light transmission and solar factor g (iso 9050m1) 0.42; offset chamber with seal. COOL-LITE KN 169 with 61% light transmission and solar factor g (iso 9050m1) 0.42; offset chamber with 6+6 mm colourless structural and laminar silicone perimeter seal. Lacquered finish, polyester quality, standard RAL colour. Modulation adapted to the shapes of the façade, maximum module width 2.50 m. Includes all the auxiliary means necessary for the complete formation of the wall.

This is a house that would like to be more attached to the ground. A house that searches for its roots in a forceful, almost excessive way, and it shows itself in this way. Radically devoid of any act that could mislead its true interest: feet on the ground and deck in the sky. The concrete structure, its screens, end up defining the space almost prematurely; and the ceramic roof collects the reflections of the sun and the clouds. In this house, the domestic space is what remains between the structure and the landscape. The plot, which has a capricious geometry for being the rest of a residential area, will end up positioning the house and the program. The house is organised on two floors. The first level at street level, which contains the most public program of the house, is anchored to the ground thanks to the concrete structure. And, on the second level, floating above the garden, are the rooms that, thanks to their exterior white ceramic finish, are externally camouflaged with the clouds.

The project is located on the northern slope of the Collserola mountain, in the residential development area of Casa de Mates, in the town of Sant Cugat. The site has some extraordinary initial conditions. Firstly, it is a site directly connected to the centre of Barcelona, despite being 20 kilometres away, thanks to the fact that the Mira Sol station of the Generalitat's railways is very close to the project. Secondly, the area where the project is located enjoys exceptional environmental conditions. It is a place where the future users of the building will have excellent views of the southern face of the Collserola mountain and at the same time enjoy direct contact with the Natural Park. The context is, therefore, that of a site that enjoys the advantages of being in a natural environment and physically connected to the big city. The projects are based on the idea of proposing flats with transition spaces - balconies, terraces and galleries - capable of providing users with intermediate spaces between the interior and exterior of the home. The building is developed as a compact stepped volume that adapts to the topography of the street. The project is distributed with a typology of dwellings passing through the street in the inner courtyard of the block and responds to the context by following the solar orientation of the site. On the south-west façade facing the street, galleries have been designed to function as climatic cushions that improve the building's energy performance while providing temperature-controlled transition living spaces. These climatic spaces (galleries) have been built by designing prefabricated concrete pieces that incorporate adjustable louvres that allow solar and thermal control of the building. On the northeast façade, which faces the interior of the block, balconies of varying widths, between 1.80 and 2.50 m, have been designed to provide the dwellings with outdoor spaces (terraces) which, thanks to their generous dimensions, allow all users to develop outdoor activities. This is a modern project that relies on abstract architecture to build healthy spaces, but at the same time it is also a project that reinterprets the conditions, materials and spatial dimensions of traditional architecture to propose dwellings capable of responding efficiently and sustainably to contemporary uses.