"Organization type ": Estudio

Urban Spaces 2 / Mumuleanu 14 Apartment Building

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Urban Spaces 2 / Mumuleanu 14 Apartment Building

Policies and regulations
Financing
Promotion and production

Main objectives of the project

The project densifies a fragmented neighborhood in central Bucharest. It works with local dwelling typologies, in an attempt to preserve the flavour of small corners, courtyards, gardens, long narrow houses which all used to fill the old center of Bucharest, and which are quickly disappearing under a fast and mostly uncontrolled development process.

Date

  • 2020: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Petra Bodea
  • Architect: Bogdan Brădățeanu
  • Architect: Adrian Untaru
  • Architect: Andrei Șerbescu

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Bucharest
Country/Region: Romania

Description

The apartments building is located within a very heterogeneous urban fabric. It consists of 7 house-like volumes, successively placed along the site, creating a community of 20 different apartments. The building's imprecise outline opens less towards the street, and more towards the deep and diffuse core which is often hidden between Bucharest’s old streets. The elongated volume stretches from the street to the (deep) back of the site and stays connected to the street through an access courtyard that runs along the site's western boundary. On the plot’s eastern side, the long and irregular strip of land is split into a sequence of private gardens.

The entrances’ careful customization and the units' double orientation are borrowed from the characteristics of the wagon-type dwelling, a typical housing pattern in Bucharest's old central neighborhoods. Thus, on the ground floor duplex apartments are entered directly from the common garden, like a series of "maisonettes".

On the second floor, an external gallery runs along the whole building, as an elevated "alley" or garden, through which all apartments from the 2nd and 3rd+4th floor are accessed.
Bucharest's central areas face nowadays a fast and rather chaotic densification. While we believe that density can, and many times is form of sustainability, we also admit that the relationship between habitation within an old urban fabric and the increase of its density is often a fragile one, as such areas and places of our city might lose their atmosphere and character.

Our project tries to mediate between different sizes and densities, in a central neighborhood with small streets, long, narrow plots, and a puzzle of old and new buildings, of all types and scales, which is also not far from the socialist intervention of a large boulevard and its "curtain" of tall apartment blocks.

The project thus tries to work with a local typological criterion (the long “wagon-house”) and aims to respect and complete the neighborhood’s character, by attaching and overlapping within one long and fragmented building several dwellings with distinct, private entrances, porches, gardens, loggias or roof terraces. All units benefit from cross ventilation and open towards the more public West side (front) garden and towards the more intimate East side (back) garden.
The structure is made of concrete frames which carefully follow the shape of the 7 volumes. Beams are used only on transversal direction, within the walls between the apartments, allowing for higher openings on the long facades. The slabs are cantilevered towards the Western side, creating the intermediate spaces of the verandahs and open gallery. The slabs are tied together with thin steel columns, working as cross-ties and allowing for a deep façade, with a “portico” appearance.

At the same time, the project has searched to reclaim the plaster as a simple, yet beautiful façade material and technique. A very common and rich technique in Bucharest’s older architecture, it has recently almost disappeared, in a period when the whole city is being arbitrarily clad in polystyrene, with standard mechanized finishing. The plaster was applied and finished manually all around the building - all small errors were left visible, precisely because they enhance the beauty of the material. We believe that such "syncopes" complete the whole design’s expressiveness and may recover some of the "handcraft" techniques' lost qualities.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

Zdrave Residential Building

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Zdrave Residential Building

Mismatches
Urban Design
Promotion and production
Ownership and tenure

Main objectives of the project

Zdrave Mix-Use Residential Building is situated in the city center in close proximity to the Medical Academy. The program is focused on accommodating student, professionals, and families.

Date

  • 2019: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Plamen Bratkov
  • Architect: Rossitza Hristova Bratkova

Location

Continent: Europe
Country/Region: Bulgaria

Description

The building is located in close proximity to the city center and the Medical Academy. The neighborhood is comprised of the vanishing eclectic houses from the 20th century, the rigid socialist Modernist high-rise of the Medical Academy, and the kitschy, pseudo-contemporary housing blocks from the 2000's. The program is mixed, mainly residential however in order to respond to the specific needs of the place with some of the biggest national hospitals in the area the building accommodates medical practices in the first three levels, a coffee shop, the next several floors are smaller units designed for students, and the upper floors provide regular family apartments. After the first site was occupied the adjacent site was also acquired in order to continue the building and provide more student housing. The functional mix stemming from the specific locality becomes a social one as well, counteracting to the growing number of repetitive closed housing complexes in the periphery of the city.
The design aims at finding a middle ground, oscillating between the Modernist iterations across the street and the arbitrariness of the adjacent blocks. To break the monotony of the housing units perforated handmade aluminum panels are introduced as solar shading. Their pattern is in the smallest scale and corresponds to the pixelation of the entire residential façade which can be traced in the window openings up to the perforated roof, and finally in the four partite square units forming the largest grid of the façade. A visual distinction is sought between the public and the private in their different treatments, materials and scale. Both are horizontally separated by a thin goldish line that corresponds to the height of the lower hospital volume. The glazing below the line is subdivided by uneven verticals glazing. Their upper parts are goldish and popping out, the verticals are discretely outlining the silhouettes of the houses that existed on the plot preserving their memory.
The building is made up of black plastered walls, handmade aluminum panels, and goldish bricks. The structure is mainly reinforced concrete. Due to the small site of the building a regular construction with columns would have left little to no space for parking underground. In order to free the underground level for parking the structure features four pre-stressed beams for each building to carry the loads leaving open space for cars. In order to achieve a fully glazed façade on the ground floor I-beams paired with reinforced concrete were installed to have smaller column sections and attain the feeling of openness in the most public parts of the buildings.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

16 Terraced Low-Rise Houses Spijkerkwartier

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16 Terraced Low-Rise Houses Spijkerkwartier

Policies and regulations
Financing
Urban Design
Ownership and tenure

Main objectives of the project

Organised in four parallel stripes, each consisting of four of almost identical houses, the allotment is surrounded by a compact landscape with trees and bushes. The project presents itself as a collective ensemble with a clear sculptural urban form that expresses the idea of the settlement as one built structure.

Date

  • 2022: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Paschke Laura
  • Architect: Jan Gerrit Wessels
  • Architect: André Kempe
  • Architect: Oliver Thill

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Arnhem
Country/Region: Netherlands

Description

Lying between an attractive 19th century Spijkerkwartier and a small park, the project is organised in four parallel stripes, each consisting of almost identical terraced houses. With relatively closed northern facades, the ensemble is quite open on the south side, allowing a maximum of sunlight in. The individual gardens are walled and have their own sheds, guaranteeing enough privacy and storage space. Alleys closed off with a small gate give access to the homes and function as collective areas while marking the border with the public space. A green buffer of trees and bushes stretches around the houses and defines the project as an entity: a collective ensemble with a clear sculptural urban form, expressing the idea of the settlement as one built structure. This turns the inhabitant into members of a small community instead of being merely the owners of private houses.
As a typological experiment this project aims to put a maximum of private homes on a rather small urban plot, offering an alternative to housing at the periphery of big cities. It tries to answer typological challenges inherent to high-density low-rise developments regarding the amount of individuality, privacy and collective form.

Located along an attractive 19th century area next a small community park, the ensemble is organised in four parallel stripes, consisting of almost identical terraced houses. With relatively closed northern facades, the houses are opened to the south, allowing lots of sunlight in. The individual gardens are walled and have their own sheds, guaranteeing enough privacy and storage space. Alleys give access to the homes and are closed off with a small gate, marking the line between public and collective space. A green buffer of trees and bushes stretches around the houses, defining the project as an entity: a collective ensemble with a clear sculptural urban form, expressing the idea of the settlement as one built structure. The inhabitants are then members of a community instead of being merely private houses owners.
Different options were offered to accommodate the buyers’ individual wishes, budgets and lifestyles. These simple and flexible homes have an open stair, placed inside a void it reduces mere circulation space. The southern glass facade creates a strong visual connection with the garden and a fluent spatial relation between the in and outside, enhanced by the large sliding doors. It also let the winter sun in while walled garden forms a private patio.

Bricks seemed to be the accurate building material for a quiet expression and to emphasise the spatial character of whole. The warm off-white colour allows a maximum of light reflection, reducing the visual impact of the dense settlement. No additional metal cladding around the elegant vertical windows of the north facade is required. These bricks have been specially developed with a German brick manufacturer. The visibility of the dilatation joints was to be minimized. Combined with bronze-anodized aluminium windows, sun-protection glass and sunscreens, the result is a modest ensemble with a striking generosity. The solid but light materialisation recalls classical mid-century housing estates from the 20th century.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

Viale Giulini Affordable Housing

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Viale Giulini Affordable Housing

Policies and regulations
Urban Design
Promotion and production

Main objectives of the project

A compact and down-to-earth architecture.

Date

  • 2020: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Junko Kirimoto
  • Architect: Massimo Alvisi

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Barletta
Country/Region: Barletta, Italy

Description

The complex, divided into 3 blocks, counting 50 residential units including car parks and commercial activities, looks like a C-shaped monolith, spanning a height of 6 floors. The regularity of the elevations represents the main character of the building: the uniform dark grey brick curtain becomes a neutral score where dynamic rhythms are delivered by white protruding loggias.

All the apartments are organized around a courtyard, which occupies over 70% of the lot. The courtyard is designed as a small park, where the inhabitants can leave the chaos of the city behind, and enjoy trees and deciduous plants, which provide shade in summer and natural light in winter.

During the day, natural light reduces the apparent weight of the building, the volumes of the loggias and balconies become slight, combining the material and the abstract, lightness and gravity with maximum simplicity.
The project, conceived as the 'zero point' of a general redevelopment of this part of the city, breaks away from the typical forms of social housing construction. The main interest was working on the typology and quality of the spaces, not only on the design.

To balance the gravity of the volume, whose profile on the ground floor bends to expand the public space, we imagined a series of light and permeable loggias hanging on the facade, 'democratically' attributing extra space to everyone. What’s more, thanks to their white and perforated surfaces, they reflect natural light within the domestic environment, and they add a further 10 to 15 m2 to the apartments, enhancing the spatial quality of the more modest and limited typological cuts.

Rigorous lines, essential shapes and balanced colors: the result is a simple and refined design - in contrast with the eccentricity of the surrounding buildings - which restores dignity to social housing in the suburbs. A project that, with the same grace with which it stands, brings the theme of quality accommodation at affordable prices back to the heart of the architectural debate.
The building is highly innovative from a technological aspect. The solutions adopted ensure that the internal and external loggias are prefabricated and reproducible in series, without renouncing the richness of detail and durability. This strategy, shared with the client, has made it possible to make quality social housing and to deliver a unique, safe and durable home, with an extremely limited budget for the current market.

The balconies overlook Viale Giulini to optimize the natural light, and carved into the volume in the other elevations to limit the solar radiation. Protected from rain at the top and laterally by perforated sheet metal screens to increase the privacy. Their shape allows for maximum customization, without altering the general aesthetics of the facades.

The ground floor of the building transmits solidity and dynamism: the cladding starts from the ground, rooting the building, while a clear vertical diagonal cut boosts the volume. The same inclination is applied horizontally between the lateral elevations and the main front, as well as the roof parapet, which hides the thermal solar panels.

Authors:

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

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