Location / Madrid
Year / 2004
Architects / In collaboration with Burgos & Garrido arquitectos.
Construction documents and construction administration.
The best neighbourhood is not composed of unique buildings. Systematicity, a certain homogeneity and expressive modesty are attributes that we consider necessary for most of the housing buildings. Therefore, the exterior façades of this building, repetitive, with equal openings that do not reveal the distracted viewer the house they light, contribute, allowing some vibration, to generate a quiet urban area, as well as to give an identity to the complex.
Neither open nor enclosed courtyard. A completely closed block can be restrictive. On this one, morfology is maintained preserving the alignments with the adjacent blocks, but its interior garden is connected to the street, to the exterior, opening to the south. The substantial helical shape of the complex allows to keep an urban scale to the exterior, providing the neighbourhood of Sanchinarro with an ordered visual reference. The interior, from where the access to all houses takes part, has a more domestic scale and is visually enriched with this geometric helix dissonance. The garden is continuous, with sloping surfaces, slightly crooked and soft landscaped hills that create a topography where children can play hide and seek.
The social housing policy has determined its solution on surfaces and number of bedrooms. The geometric structure, strictly modulated on a mesh of 2’70 meters, allows the dual position of the “day” spaces, to one or the other façade, variating the orientation of the house and providing typological diversity. Cross ventilation, double circulation, double orientation and a variety of typologies have been the unescapable goal. 21 variations, on one floor, duplex or with garden, with 2, 3 or 4 bedrooms exploit the full typological potential.
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