The project creates hallways that increase the street-patio connection and encourage the connection of the city with the private space. Access to the attics is produced from the outside, activating a collective and meeting space for the neighbours.
To optimize environmental conditions, the use of passive climate control architectural resources is encouraged. The south-north orientation helps to propose very different solutions on both sides: in the south, there are continuous terraces protected by mobile lattices, and in the north, the façade is fragmented thanks to the wet cores that in turn serve as solar collectors.
Inside, the mechanical and humid spaces of the houses are moved to the perimeter, freeing up the rest of the space, making it more flexible and allowing it to have a changing domestic use. The houses are interns guaranteeing the renewal of air. The "served" or "main" spaces are illuminated and ventilated through the "server" or "secondary" spaces.
Residential building in Torrent by RAUM 41_42. Photograph by Alejandro Gómez Vives.
Project description by RAUM 41_42
Using four strategies applied to architecture, we have tried to increase as far as possible the urban and architectural quality of a strident context without identity. Faced with the chaos of the infinite architectural responses and material solutions of the surroundings, neutrality, and silence are proposed. Faced with private and cloistered block interiors, a timid opening of the block to the city is proposed. Faced with optimal climatic conditions, the use of passive architectural climate control resources is encouraged, and, faced with a stagnation in the capacity for adaptation of the contemporary domestic space, a free interior with the capacity for change is proposed.
This is a building of 26 dwellings located in an expansion area of the Valencian town of Torrent.
Sobriety in the face of chaos
The location of the building in a chaotic context as far as architectural image is concerned, as well as its singular implantation as the top of an incomplete block, leads us to propose a contained and neutral building in terms of chromatic variety (a monochrome, the grey tone was chosen for the whole building) as well as forceful and continuous in terms of its volumetric perception.
Residential building in Torrent by RAUM 41_42. Photograph by Alejandro Gómez Vives.
To the south, its most exposed façade, a solution on an urban scale is proposed, a continuous and forceful volume that recovers and enhances the curve required by the planning, thus promoting a dynamic image of the building.
To the north, however, the volume is fragmented, giving rise to a more domestic scale in the courtyard, a more static and relaxed space.
The front wall turns to the west and changes its material, offering a singular façade to a more open exterior.
The building is exposed in turn by formalizing itself into four volumes of different textures that reveal the three existing housing typologies as well as the ground floor and commercial mezzanine required by the regulations of the area.
The functional discontinuities are materialized by changes in material and texture. Exposed brick or latticework for the main volume, mini-wave aluminum sheeting in the corner, or plain in the penthouses dematerialize the ends and reveal the different typologies existing in the building. All the while maintaining a monochrome image.
Residential building in Torrent by RAUM 41_42. Photograph by Alejandro Gómez Vives.
Public-private space connection
The proposed building seeks to reinterpret the private space and give part of it to both the city and its inhabitants through three strategies. On the one hand, the block is not closed off but is set back on the corner, rising and allowing access to the interior. At the same time, it is fragmented and curved, softening and marking the access to the courtyard. The fragmented volume controls and reduces its scale at this point, making the entrance more pleasant.
The entrance halls are throughways, enhancing the connection between the street and the courtyard, encouraging the transit of the city to this space conceived in the planning as a private space.
As a third strategy, access to the penthouses is from the outside so that the north terrace, normally private, becomes a collective space, amplifying the meeting spaces for the building's inhabitants.
Residential building in Torrent by RAUM 41_42. Photograph by Alejandro Gómez Vives.
Optimization of climatic resources
The north-south orientation of the plot leads us to propose opposite and complementary solutions on each of its façades:
To the south, we propose a deep façade providing, in a context such as the city of Valencia and employing continuous terraces, active and usable shaded space for most of the year. Through mobile shutters (which reinforce the homogeneity of the volume), it is protected from the southern sun and provides the dwelling with an intermediate space that softens the transition between the dwelling and the city, while providing visual protection and privacy for the bathing spaces.
The recessed volumes on the south façade emerge again on the north façade, which is fragmented by the shower spaces that, like rounded volumes, open up on their sides in an attempt to capture the light and sunlight from the east. The bathroom in this case acts as a solar collector.
To the west, the openings diminish and are protected from the sun by vertical and fixed slats.
The general circulation staircases are ventilated and illuminated by a louvre that cools them, providing air circulation and airflow in the building and marking the entrances.
The building is completely through from north to south, thus helping the renewal of air through the generation of currents and eliminating hot air, and replacing it with fresh air.
Residential building in Torrent by RAUM 41_42. Photograph by Alejandro Gómez Vives.
Dignification of the spaces served
A housing typology is proposed in which the mechanical and humid spaces are moved to the outline, thus freeing up the rest of the domestic space.
The bathroom and kitchen rooms act as a coarse filter on the façade, enhancing the interior space, and allowing for a flexible and changing interior.
The proposal is for a pass-through dwelling whose "main" interior spaces, "served spaces", illuminate and ventilate through the "secondary" spaces, "server spaces", thus inverting the concept of server and served spaces, giving value to the bathroom and kitchen spaces in an attempt to regenerate the conventional idea of the dwelling.
