The flat is located on the overlying floor of a building built in the seventies in the Sants district of Barcelona. Built some years after the original housing block, it becomes part of the landscape of the unfortunately typical added elements that decorate Barcelona’s rooftops, and which proliferated especially during Mayor Porcioles’ term of office (1957-1973).
The resulting plan typology is unique. It absorbs two backward movements on the floor – the staggered section allowed the building’s increases to go unnoticed from the street – but at the same time, it occupies the whole floor surface, while in the other levels it is divided into two. This fact results in a plan with a stairs core in the middle of the house, with a patio at each side, and with two crossed terraces.
This facts makes us approach the project as a four-façade refurbishment: it will not be a flat, but a single-family house in height. This explains one of the first decisions we took: to equalise the interior pavement with the exterior one, resulting in a house with a certain resemblance to a summer residence, where going barefoot, playing with water and carelessness are transmitted to the inhabitants without prejudice.
The project solves the problem by maximising the relationship between both terraces through the only possible point, promoting the cross-ventilation of a covered space which would suffer overheating in the summer. Stretching this visual, the day and night areas are connected, using mixed spaces.
The front of the southern terrace, a living place, concentrates the living room, the dining room and the kitchen, with furniture which promotes a sense of movement. However, the northern terrace is reserved to the rooms and to a less intense use. The virtue remains in being able to choose where to be depending on the temperature one desires on a certain time of the day or season of the year.
