123 Social Housing Apartments

The project raises eight floors above the ground along one of the limits of the block imposed by the restrained urban planning. The great scale of the building forces it to act as a visual screen for the green area that stands aside, physically protecting from the twelve-lane road on the opposite side. The volume, specifically fixed according to the rigid city-planning rules that prevail within the scope of the PAU de Vallecas and the optimization of the space to obtain the highest amount of apartments asked by the public developer, drove us to respect the enveloped volume determined in the planning, using other tools to establish a dialogue with the surrounding urbanscape. Thus, the façade and its surface remains as one of the most powerful instruments to manipulate the perceptive scale. Colors, sizes and displacements for the openings are regarded with attention. The apartments in this floor are oriented towards the so called green area and they have been raised two meters from street level in order to provide them with some extra isolation from the view of the possible passer-by. The official facade opens towards the hustle and bustle common of a commercial street with heavy traffic. It gathers the commercial premises and the three accesses. Even though the number of apartments demanded two separated accesses, we decided to create a single welcome space which would be big enough to interact with the scale of the building.  This hall area is completely open on both sides and its rectangular shape establishes a dialogue with the free-form platforms of the mailbox area. Thus, the entrance is modulated by means of generous terraces finished with vitreous mosaic, prepared for the installation of the mailboxes, which grow in height emphasizing the landing as a highly compressed space, where you’re almost able to touch the plastic semi spheres. These transitions of scale are unified through a green ceiling completely illuminated with the so called network of protruding lights-skylight.
The building poses reflections dealing with the scale reduction, bringing a friendly relation with the surroundings. The façade is broken up in small colored units that combined with each other are able to transmit a changing sensation, a dynamic chameleon-like skin.
The volume crystallizes through open celled polycarbonate panels fixed over aluminum profiles, creating a sustainable and recyclable skin. These panels use the gradation of tones and brightness with a substrate of neutral color determined by the outer shell of the facade, achieving the right combination of both materials in order to make the entire façade to vibrate, entering in resonance with that light so characteristic on the city of Madrid. Instead of the common window roll-up blind, we have designed specific shutters for the project. Three-hundred and sixty-nine openings fixed through six different types. They open outwards and fold sideways until they rest perpendicular to the façade. They have been made in aluminum and finished with the same open celled polycarbonate panels used in the façade. They have two possible positions which change the perception of the volume. Completely closed they seem to merge within a monolithic volume giving continuity to the vertical strips. Completely opened they are transformed into unequal colored fins giving the façade much more plasticity. The ground floor is enveloped by a dark grey metal skin which as a virtual podium “supports” the ever changing green volume. The building is topped by the penthouses finished in white which seems to blur with the clear skies.
In the inside, a long courtyard flanked with access galleries provides the apartments with light and crossed ventilation, helping them to become completely open to two opposed facades. The light galleries made out of galvanized steel wind through the inner void and optimize the ratio of vertical access cores on each floor. Translucent polycarbonate hanged ceilings are settled like linen cloths that illuminate the accesses to the apartments. They also conceal the electrical wiring and provide diffused light. In order to capture as much light as possible, everything is finished is white with several touches of color on the windows and on the elevator fronts. We have considered a mixed structural solution. The main body of the building is solved in reinforced concrete, whereas the circulation system of galleries and the stairs in the courtyard are solved in steel.