Case study type: Edificio

Residential Complex at Gallarate

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Residential Complex at Gallarate

Financing
Urban Design
Promotion and production

Main objectives of the project

Construction of 20 apartments in the historical centre of Gallarate between via Roma e via Postporta distributed in two four storey building. The urban insert is conceived giving great importance to the external spaces, to the public and private paths, reproposing the traditional Lombard courtyard and the alleys of the ancient town.

Date

  • 2020: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Marta Rodrigues
  • Architect: Edison Okumura
  • Architect: Roberto Cremascoli
  • Architect: Álvaro Siza Vieira

Location

Continent: Europe
Country/Region: Italy

Description

Gallarate is a small town between Malpensa airport and Milan, situated within the natural area of the Park of Ticino, therefore submitted to lanscape bound. The vacant plot (50x60 m approximately) available for the construction is inserted in the limit between the fabrics of the historical centre and the Liberty period – the twentieth-century Borgomaneri factory facing the complex in via Roma is a good example. The functional program consists of 20 apartments with surface areas ranging from 75 to 270 m2, and housing typology varying from studios to four-bedroom apartments, 94 parking spaces and 20 cellars. There are 4 levels above ground and 2 under ground. The buildings are 15 m wide inclusive of the loggia (2m). The main courtyard is 10 m wide and 41.6 m deep. The apartments on the top of each builiding are duplexes with large terraces facing the urban landscape and the Park of Ticino.
The main concern has undoubtedly been to respect the continuity to the urban grid, designing the new volumes considering the hights of the sorrounding buildings and the conformation of the adjacent plots. Despite the fact that it consists of a private intervention, the functional program included municipal parking spaces, and a public autonomous pedestrian pathway (permeability of the plot), open during most part of the day, connecting via Roma to via Postporta. All this results in the city entering and crossing the complex. Both the resident and the no resident pedestrians experience the feeling of entering a small town marked by some elements that provide the complex with an articulate characterictic: from the portals that sign the entrances, to the volumes that rise from the basements, illuminating the underground levels with natural light. From the study of the dwelling typolgy point of view, the choice of designing apartments with double exposures (east-ovest) ensures a better thermal efficiency (cross ventilation) and an optimal solar orientation. Large balconies work as an extension of the living rooms.
In the 50x60 m plot, the two buildings, with reinforced concrete structure and post-tensioned floors, placed 10m apart from one another, bound a large rectangular courtyard with generous green spaces, and are designed as two different typologies of buildings: the smaller one, facing via Roma is an autonomous body, similar to a modern villa; the larger one, U-shaped, encloses another courtyard and interacts with the oldest part of the town.

The green spaces run through the plot, under covered passageways, galleries, or climbing the ritainig walls at the limits of the project. The stone material travertino cover entirely the construction, reaching the underground floors through the ventilation patios. The external paths are covered with grained stone and curbs in travertino. The vegetation characterizes not only the external ground floor level, but also the roofs of the buildings which are covered mostly with green areas. The only exception is where the photovoltaic panels are located. The concern about the energy efficiency is highlighted also by the presence of geothermal probes, used both for heating (floor heating) and hot domestic water.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

Housing Block Bagebi

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Housing Block Bagebi

Mismatches
Financing
Urban Design
Promotion and production

Main objectives of the project

The building is located on the Tbilisi-Tskneti highway, next to the former Maghlivi student campus. The project brief was to create a building consisting of 35 residential units, though the client’s desire was not solely focused on the commercialization and selling of the apartments.

Date

  • 2021: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Giorgi Beriashvili
  • Architect: David Makharoblishvili
  • Architect: Gigi Shukakidze

Location

Country/Region: Georgia

Description

Due to the location of this building, which is adjacent to a forested area, there was a need to create a building that reflected a spacious, healthy living environment, unlike the tight constructions surrounding it. During the location analysis, we researched important Soviet-era buildings nearby, including the student campus complex of Maghlivi University, where refugees from Abkhazia have been housed for decades. Generally, our observation is focused on the process of living in abandoned and unfinished buildings and how existing structures become dependent on the different forms of life. The intuitive connection and predominant reference while developing the forms of the building was the notion of a completely bare frame, which contained various ways of fulfilling itself. In general, the form goes through many stages of criticism and often returns to the original intuitive image or archetype, yet with more sophisticated composition. In our case, we arrived again at the phenomenon of the bare frame.
The horizontal and vertical elements of the facade are as functional as possible and have both a basic structural and engineering-sanitary role. At their expense, the living spaces offer more freedom and are easier to customize. This allowed us to avoid excessive costs and omit materials, which tend to be expensive when creating the expressiveness of a building. Here, in each apartment, remains only a simple dividing line between the inner and outer realms. Due to the difficult terrain, the building has entrances to three different levels. There are sports and recreational spaces for children on the ground floor; a two-story underground car park and a garden planted with various plants, which was initiated by the client due to the necessity of filling the existing ravine. There are also swimming pools on the green roof verandas of the building.
Critical building content is important in addition to providing functionality to the client and residents. How can some methods, with the exemption of unnecessary formation, make a person feel free to use a building? As the inner life of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood is constantly changing, the facade’s net structure as the equalizer of this makes the process more contrasting to the observer.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

Student Center and Dormitory for the University of Dubrovnik

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Student Center and Dormitory for the University of Dubrovnik

Policies and regulations
Urban Design
Promotion and production

Main objectives of the project

Student Center and Dormitory for the University of Dubrovnik is a small university city within a city. It interprets urban themes of Mediterranean cities: open-air life, as well as architectonic volume, form, and texture.

Date

  • 2020: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Ana Martinčić Vareško
  • Architect: Vanja Rister
  • Architect: Tin Sven Franić

Location

Continent: Europe
Country/Region: Croatia

Description

Student Center and Dormitory for the University of Dubrovnik is an integrative point for University of Dubrovnik joining students and teachers, city, and University. Public platform with abundant horticulture is designed on the city parterre level, strongly connecting to the surrounding neighborhoods. Public access facilities like student restaurants, cafe, convention hall, gym, dorm reception area and multipurpose room are all positioned alongside linear a promenade connecting two neighborhoods. Three volumes of student housing “float” above it, joined together with common spaces.
In the tourism dominated Dubrovnik of today, it is important for architecture to articulate public interest and local citizens’ needs. On the symbolic level Student Dormitory finally made Dubrovnik a functioning university city.

Site location in Montovjerna, Dubrovnik is determined by the compression between two build up hills on east-west axis, and north-west axis that is topographically open, oriented towards the sea.

Three housing blocks interpret cloister – introverted, Mediterranean “open air rooms”. Inner gardens surrounded by open galleries with student rooms form a framework for communal lives of its inhabitants. Diamond shape of its layout is derived from topography: an archetypical square is transformed to rhombus. Distortion and rotation of the layout allow for good orientations for all the rooms and creates unusual dynamics of interieur spaces. Typical room is divided into three zones with flexibility of use in mind, each setting a different atmosphere.
The reinforced concrete structure of the project follows the logic of its concept: post and beam grid system allow free flow of the lower part of the building, and housing blocks of the upper part are supported by cantilevered room walls. Glass façade of the parterre suggest openness of the public program behind, and fiber cement sheeting façade of the volumes above reinterpret texture and mass of stone city walls of the past. Complex room window design with two parapet heights with fixed and sliding brises-soleil permit window sitting inside and create ever changing texture on the outside. In the inside courtyards wood is used for large room windows and doors as well as railing / sun protection along open galleries. Extensive green roof gardens inside such open air wooden “rooms” are at the heart of the building.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

198 Social Housing units

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198 Social Housing units

Main objectives of the project

This housing project won first prize in a competition of design and building teams, in which constructive innovation was an essential premise.

Date

  • 1995: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Manuel de las Casas

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Madrid
Country/Region: Spain

Description

The apartment blocks, each with five levels, house four units per floor in a linear scheme, with the majority of the 198 dwellings open to two façades. In order to shorten the period of construction, prefabricated concrete panels were employed in the enclosure, its large scale and meticulously designed joints dividing the facades into a lively pattern. Unity in the whole is obtained by combining the comb-like formation of some of the buildings with the perimetric situation of others, thus visibly closing the site. The importance attributed to the garden and other open spaces is noted in the careful paving and colorist, ceramic tile cladding of the skylights protruding out from the parking garage.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

The Slottet Housing Group

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The Slottet Housing Group

Main objectives of the project

A housing group of three 4- and 5 story buildings inspired by, and with concern for the urban qualities of the surrounding villa-like multistory residential quarters - a contemporary interpretation of the the urban villa motif.

Date

  • 2000: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Matt White
  • Architect: Henrik Jais-Nielsen

Location

Continent: Europe
Country/Region: Sweden

Description

Slottsvången is a housing group just outside the centre of Helsingborg. The group consists of three buildings of 4 and 5 floors, and contains a total of 34 flats. The top floors of the three buildings are designed as penthouses. The surroundings, which inspired the design of the new project, consist of the monumental school Slottsvångsskolan and an area with multi-family housing that resemble single-family houses. The design of the new housing group is an interpretation of the motif the urban villa, or single-family house, in a park with a large area of well-kept grass.
Slottsvången is a group of residential buildings located approximately 600 m from the center of Helsingborg. 34 apartments are distributed in three buildings of 4 and 5 floors. The top floors are designed as penthouses, with reclusive façades and large roof terraces. The surrounding area consists of a large school of monumental character, the Slottsvångsskolan, as well as a cohesive area of villa-like apartment buildings. It is to a certain extent the vicinity and the concern of these surroundings that motivates the chosen design. It allows for sight lines, lets in the sun in the neighboring streets and gardens, and is a contemporary interpretation of the motif the urban villa. The houses are characterized by large patios with varied placement, mutually offset so that they all catch the sun. The façades are made of lightweight walls plastered white, with touches of natural colored cement composite panels, mounted with edges horizontally overlapping, as clapboards.
Below the two larger houses along the St. Peder’s street is a garage, technical areas and storage units.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

Renovation Student Housing Calslaan

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Renovation Student Housing Calslaan

Main objectives of the project

Radial renovation of student housing blocks on campus of the Twente University of Technology.

Date

  • 1997: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Dick van Wageningen
  • Architect: Felix Claus

Location

Continent: Europe
Country/Region: Netherlands

Description

The brief was to change the organisation of the buildings. Gropus of eighteen studentrooms were to be reorganised
Part of a complex of student flats built in the 1960s on the campus of the Twente University of Technology has undergone a radical renovation. In the original set-up, twenty students were housed in each block which had a communal kitchen on the ground floor. In the converted buildings each floor contains five or six student rooms plus a common room with adjoining kitchen. In the centre of each block is a spiral staircase. The front and rear elevations were moved outwards so that the students’ rooms are somewhat larger than before, although they remain tiny. In stark contrast to the niggardly proportions of the living space, is the generous impression made by the complex as a whole. Structuralist illegibility has made way for a crystal-clear outward form. The deep-set vertical windows give the white-stuccoed architecture a stately air. The marble cladding of the entrance and the heavy toughened-glass entrance doors lend the very basic life of a student an uncustomary distinction. Whereas the original linked cubes gave the impression of being part of an endlessly repeatable structure, the renovated blocks convey a sense of autonomy.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

WoZoCo

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WoZoCo

Policies and regulations
Urban Design
Promotion and production
Ownership and tenure

Main objectives of the project

The client, a large housing corporation, wanted 100 units for elderly people with a gallery-type circulation. The units however did not fit the site in an acceptable way. A half joking solution whereby the houses that would not fit inside the gallery block were glued to the outer side of the volume drew attention and was developed.

Date

  • 1997: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Nathalie de Vries
  • Architect: Winy Maas
  • Architect: Jacob van Rijs

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Amsterdam
Country/Region: Netherlands

Description

To maintain adequate sunlight in the surrounding buildings, only 87 of the 100 units could be realized within the slab. Where could the remaining 13 dwellings be positioned? If they were put elsewhere on the site, the open space would be further reduced. A deeper slab with narrower units did not seem possible. The North-South orientation of the block meant that the generator had to be a 7.20 meter module. By ?cantilevering? the remaining 13 units from the north façade, they are literally suspended in the air. The hanging East-West orientated types complete the North-South dwellings in the block with a view over the adjacent meadow. An economic layout for the main slab could lead to savings of 7 to 8% of the cost, enough to compensate for the 50% more expensive hanging units.
The Spartan gallery flat becomes acceptable. Each gallery is given a different perspective. By changing window positions, balcony sizes and varying balcony materials, the different flats acquire their own character. With the party walls constructed 8 cm thicker than structurally necessary (for sound insulation) it became possible to use this extra thickness for the connection of the cantilever trusses without having to increase the weight of the load-bearing walls.When the project was completed, we were told, that we had realized the social housing project with the lowest building-costs in Amsterdam (applause). Almost 10 years later, averagely 2-3 touring-cars and numerous taxi s and rent-a-bikes with architectural tourist now visit the outskirts of the so called western garden cities to see the hanging houses of Amsterdam.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

Colocassides Residence

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Colocassides Residence

Main objectives of the project

A mountain weekend home for a couple, which has a great interest in music, cooking and nature.

Date

  • 1995: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Haris Hadjivassiliou
  • Architect: Vassilis Trooussiliou

Location

Continent: Europe
Country/Region: Cyprus

Description

The brief asked for a comfortable holiday home with a spacious living and dining spaces where the owners could relax, read and appreciate the vineyard vistas of distant melting horizon.

The programme requested to incorporate the master bedroom to the living and dining zones, while the guest living quarters should be isolated in a different floor.
The steep site is surrounded by verdant pine forest where minimum construction is permitted. The topography, orientation as well as the programmatic requests suggested an elongated house embedded in earth (minimum cut and fill) in which all spaces are organized linearly looking south to the uninterrupted vistas.

In addition the typology of the adjacent stone vine terraces confirm the building form with a flat roof. Flat roofs ar indigenous in the surrounding villages for drying grapes.

Structurally and functionally this house is defined by a series of five cube outlines. The resulting rectangular volume is dissected by a curved retaining wall, which holds the land behind. Circulation happens in the resulting space, which is illuminated from above with natural light.
The “piano nobile” (first floor) accommodates main living spaces and master bedroom whereas the ground floors comprise guest area, utilities and garage.

All structural elements are of fair-faced concrete, its finish reveals the rich pattern of the timber surface. All dividing brick walls are rendered to the soil colour of the adjacent slopes. Most of the materials are left to their natural state.

In all three dimensions the golden ratio principles were employed. The facades were derived from the plans by way of dynamic symmetry.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

Shipboy Housing

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Shipboy Housing

Policies and regulations
Urban Design
Promotion and production

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 1995: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Ritva Mannersuo
  • Architect: Pekka Helin

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Helsinki
Country/Region: Finland, Helsinki

Description

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

Dianas Have Housing Complex

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Dianas Have Housing Complex

Mismatches
Policies and regulations
Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

The main objectives of the 1989 housing scheme competition near Horsholm's historical town center, involving Vandkunsten and five other architectural offices, centered on seamlessly integrating with the extraordinary natural setting. The design aimed to create a paradisiacal forest atmosphere within an urban housing area while addressing the challenge of inserting itself as a transitional wedge between different housing types to the east and west. Emphasizing respect for the surroundings and the site's unique ambiguities, the project sought a harmonious blend of inspiration, context sensitivity, and thoughtful urban planning.

Date

  • 1992: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Michael Sten Johnsen
  • Architect: Svend Algren
  • Architect: Steffen Kragh
  • Architect: Jens Thomas Arnfred

Location

Continent: Europe
Country/Region: Denmark

Description

In the spring of 1989, six architectural offices, including Vandkunsten were invited to participate in a design competition for a housing scheme on an extraordinary site near the historical town center of Horsholm.

When the treetops and low foliage block out the view of the surrounding properties, and one stands in one of the small clearings, and almost paradisiacal forest atmosphere can be experienced, one that is rarely found so close to an urban housing area. To be in an almost untouched natural setting, so close to Horsholm’s center is one of the subtle ambiguities of this “place”.
Another ambiguity or perhaps even a double entendre arises from the existing buildings to the east and west of the site. This exclusive property forms a transition between the high-lying, old villas on large tracts to the east, and the very distinctive housing blocks to the west. This situations, in which the new scheme is forced to insert itself as a wedge between two quite different housing types, was a decisive factor in planning the scheme.

Aside from the inspiration provided by the atmosphere of the place, and the respect for the surrounding housing, a number of circumstances had an influence on disposition of the main plan.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona