The following projects are located in the wonderfully cosmopolitan city of Barcelona. Here, some of Spain’s most significant architects have filled the city with buildings now world famous – Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, Casa Batllo, La Pedrera to name but a few; Flores + Prats Sala Beckett; Miralles + Pinos’ Cemetiri Nou d’Igualada; EMBT’s Santa Catarina market, and so on.
And of course there is work by Ricardo Bofill, and in particular his Walden 7, Social housing project.
Constructed in 1975, in Sant Just Desvern, this project is in effect its own ‘city’. A mixed use, urban scale development – not quite on the scale of Barrio Gaudi – but nonetheless a project of monolithic scale and proportions.
A series of linked towers (with an unbelievable 3km of bridges and walkways linking between the various building forms) form the overall building mass. And within this, a series of apartments. However these are not your typical apartment, designed to be modular, adaptable and accumulated, the 30sqm modules allow residents’ homes to grow as their social or family nest does. A person or family can grow their home in 30sqm increments thus allowing more bedrooms, studies, lounge and dining space/s to be added to the initial space.
Highly innovative for its time, and even now!, this project represents a forward thinking and progressive model rarely seen even today. And at ground level, shops occupy the various modules assigned for retail, food and beverage, medical rooms, and so on.
SocialHousing.Design 