House A
In Benimaclet, just like in many other peripheral neighborhoods of València, two urban models collide. In the center, a combination of narrow streets and townhouses remind us of the origins of the district as an independent village. Surrounding this core, a dense crust made of modest housing blocks that were hastily built in the 1960s and 1970s to relieve the demographic pressure experienced by the city during Francoism.
House A stands on the contact area between these two models, where houses and multi-storey buildings mix and crash. The city qualifies this area as an ‘Expansion of historic center’, an ambiguous definition that tries to reconcile the tensions that stem from the mix. On the one hand, it allows the construction of multi-storey housing blocks. On the other, it enforces a number of spatial and aesthetic conditions –heights, window proportions, or finishes– borrowed from the townhouses nearby, thus promoting a difficult hybrid that extends the image of the village but preserves the profitability of the city.
The spaces of House A follow the regulations to the letter: an ensemble of small but tall rooms, just like the ones that host the villagers. However, their construction deviates from this model. Concrete blocks and slabs, brick facades and ceramic tile floors produce a modest palette that pays attention to the anonymous buildings in the district.
The blunt display of these components on the inside can be read as an attempt to
materialize this two-sided context, even if, in reality, it is a matter of economy and
adaptability. Once they start to live the house, the owners will decide on the preservation of this particular version of the agreement between the village and the city.
