8 Apartments in Gràcia
This project pursued to dignify the city through the incorporation of elements, proportions, materials and constructive solutions that are typical of traditional residential buildings in Barcelona.
A tribuna (an enclosed gallery projecting over the building’s front), a distinct noble element of residential buildings in Barcelona’s Eixample, characterizes each of the eight flats that make up the building. Their floor-to-ceiling height of 3.4m offers the highest level of usefulness for the 40m2 available. One room/one home, flexible and able to adapt to future changes. A light construction fixed element of 10m2 accommodates the unit’s sanitary services (kitchen and bathroom) and defines the entrance, while a built-in module that satisfies the needs of storage, leisure and work, separates and plays around the surrounding living-dining room, bedroom and tribuna. The materials –five that explain almost everything— and their materiality were chosen to guarantee, as much as possible, long-term durability: Reinforced concrete is present in the artificial stone elements of the façade, floor pavements and the interior’s porticoed structure, where it is left exposed. Ceramic elements constitute the building’s enclosure, made of 240mm-wide lightened clay bricks on the outside and double-leaf masonry of 90mm-wide lightweight clay bricks inside. The exterior façade is finished with ETICS panels, while on the inside bricks are left exposed and whitewashed, thus leaving the material’s tectonic and expressive characteristics visible with the expectation that additional layers of lime will soften the walls’ still rough texture. Wood is used for the built-in module of the “rooms” and the coverings of staircase landings. They are made of pinewood lumber frame construction finished with HPL boards; all joints are reversible to allow accessibility inside the walls. Service equipment items (ducts and conduits for utilities) are considered as an additional material of the building, all present but integrated and accessible, trying to make the useful life of the building more flexible and long-lasting. And lastly, dirt. The roughness of the façade seeks to accommodate the dirt and scuffs that will inevitably appear and accumulate in certain places, thus ensuring that over the years the building’s presence improves, or better yet, that it ages well.
