Figueras Social Housing
Figueras is a place which belongs to many of our memories.
Our project is located on a limiting space between city and countryside, in the area of l’Horta de l’Hospital, where there were still roads without tarmac in between stone walls.
It was a place that was apparently losing its identity; the new urban intervention had to preserve the area’s memory.
…beyond, the dome of the Dalí Museum, a bell tower, a sculpture…
We proposed a building with 48 apartments, of sizes comprising between 40 and 70m², to be rented out
With a variable height that creates a roof topography, and porticos on the ground floor which allow the connection of the street and the green spaces and circular plaza.
Given the long characteristics of the site, the block extends out rather like a line which wraps around itself, closing off a more private space where the service areas of the dwellings are positioned.
Only two vertical cores are needed to serve the whole block.
The building can be imagined as an urban fence made up of habitable units with their gardens at the back.
Each dwelling arises from the idea of a long and narrow habitable cell (8m façade and 5m depth!) which allows a great façade that looks onto the street, opposite to the interior distributive corridor.
The bow windows are livable spaces, unifying elements of the space in the flat, which become almost like displays of the tenants’ diverse lives to the outside.
I would like to see these windows during the utilization of the apartments, with the inside life reaching the street.
The principal idea of this project is a more urban front and a more rural back.