The 111 Building in Barcelona investigates and experiments with the idea of promoting communication, relationships and familiarity between neighbours, so that the neighbourhood acts as the first structure within society, reversing the tendency towards isolation and individuality.
The centre of the project is a large void, occupied by three trees and a fountain, surrounded by balconies and terraces, in the manner of a large theatre the seating area of which is surrounded by boxes and galleries that open onto it. Here, the neighbours come out to life on their balconies and stick their heads out to socialise or look at the landscape through a huge opening that frames Torrebonica Park. This communal yard is a platform for social relations, where people from very different origins and cultures communicate and make friends: the great void unites them.
This empty centre is reached through an excavation of the large massif that is the building towards the outside. The path from the street to the interior of the houses, crossing this large courtyard, is modulated in a sequence of stairs and a progressive change from the most open and public area to the most intimate and private area of home. The closures are blurred and unfolded in overlapping elements to unite one end with the other, working to graduate the relationship between what is public and what is private. From one end to the other, from the bedroom to the street, the route is varied and always different. The relationship between family members is mixed with the relationship with the neighbours in the yard, so that it becomes an extension of the family core, where friends and acquaintances accompany one another in their daily lives in a second level of privacy. The tranquility with which mothers let their children go to play in the yard, where everyday shopping can be entrusted to others, where the door of the house opens to invite you to walk in naturally, confirms that architecture can help provide a space of trust, and generate a fragment of the city that invites the culture of sociability.
The issue of social housing is perhaps the most important and difficult challenge that architects face today. In a global situation of crisis, collective housing can help to provide stability and return the trust that seems to have been lost in many layers of today's society. Trusting the neighbours, the possibility of counting on them, generating a community in which everyone can feel accompanied and can support themselves at any time they need, is a necessity today and architecture can collaborate in a decisive manner – it can collaborate to reverse a tendency towards isolation and individuality, promote communication, getting to know each other through physical and communicative contact between neighbours, so that the neighbourhood can function as a first social structure within society. Building 111 in Barcelona investigates and experiments on this topic, with the concern of generating a framework that invites the relationship between neighbours.
The centre of the project is a large void, occupied by three trees and a fountain, surrounded by balconies and terraces, in the manner of a large theatre the seating area of whuch is surrounded by boxes and galleries that open onto it. In the same way, the neighbours bring life to their balconies and stick their heads out to interact or look at the landscape through a huge opening that frames Torrebonica Park. This communal patio is a platform for social relations, where people from very different origins and cultures communicate and make friends: the great void unites them. As in the theatre, the dimension and proportions of this void have been key for the tension between the boundaries and the relationship between neighbours to exist in a fair way.
This empty centre is reached through an excavation of the large massif that is the building towards the outside. The façades behave like a textured cuirass, which dialogues through its chiaroscuro with the pine forest that surrounds it. The block appears to the visitor as a huge rock, placed in this landscape of pines and dry streams, which erodes, as this landscape also does, to allow transitions and articulations between the bodies of the houses. From the unitary exterior, which appears as a single house, to the multiple interior, where the 111 houses are expressed in folds and balconies with their individuality, there is a balance: this strong and massive façade, of an ancient gravity, contains and balances the fragmented interior.
The path from the street to the interior of the houses, crossing this large courtyard, is modulated in a sequence of stairs and a progressive change from the most open and public area to the most intimate and private area of home. The closures are blurred and unfolded in overlapping folds to connect one end with the other, working on the boundary to graduate the relationship between what is public and what is private. From one end to the other, from the bedroom to the street, the route is varied and always different. The greetings between family members are mixed with greetings to the neighbours in the yard, so that it becomes an extension of the family nucleus, where friends and acquaintances accompany one another in their daily lives in a second level of privacy. The tranquility with which mothers let their children go to play in the yard, where everyday shopping can be entrusted to others, where the door of the house opens to invite you to walk in naturally, confirms that architecture can help provide a space of trust, and generate a fragment of the city that invites the culture of sociability.
