We recover a typology which is not very usual in the Eixample, Antonio Bonet's "Mediterraneo" block, a hybrid that did not seek so much to break with Cerdà's rules, but to explore the true potential of those ordinances that were never approved, which allowed accidents to be approved as a regular and not exceptional component of the Eixample.
The project widens the sidewalks, moving the pedestrian away from the road traffic to the point of visually and physically connecting Londres Street with a park inside the block, and recovers an idea of a permeable block that is in the origin of the Eixample. Londres Streets extends the 20 metres with a succession of parallel spaces. We divide the building into narrow, parallel and staggered volumes from north to south, allowing the sun to reach both the homes and the children's classrooms, avoiding the compactness and ventilation courtyards typical of the Eixample, and we achieve that two different programs (school and housing) coexist and dialogue. A passage that decongests the sidewalks of parents and students appears between these two programs. There is an alternation of full and empty spaces, of light and building, creating visual relationships and transversal connections between the street and the interior of the block.
Therefore, the project proposes to requalify the accesses, circulations and open spaces, both in the school and in the homes: the roofs are playgrounds, the walkways are places of relationship and exchange.
The housing block is organised in a corridor of 7.5 metres deep, obtaining 45 pass-through homes of 45 m2 with natural cross ventilation and sun throughout the home thanks to the shallow depth in which they are developed.
