Building of 24 dwellings between party walls on Valencia Street

It is a new construction project of a multi-family building with 24 apartments, 3 commercial spaces, and parking in the basement levels, located at 595 Valencia Street in Barcelona. A mid-block building with a ground floor, 4 upper floors, and 3 basement levels.

Its primary use is for residential units, located on upper floors, commercial spaces on the ground floor, and parking garages in the basements. All the apartments have cross ventilation between the street-facing facade or the interior courtyard facade and the ventilation and lighting courtyard facade.

On the ground floor, there are 2 residential lobbies and vertical communication cores. The lobby of the left housing staircase provides access to 4 apartments on each floor (total 16 apartments), while the right staircase provides access to 2 apartments per floor (total 8 apartments).

The housing project is located on two different plots, both of which have been demolished along with their respective buildings. In the first plot, located at the corner, there was a residential building of PB+3, and in the second plot, located on Valencia Street, there was a single-story warehouse made up of two sections.

As a consequence of the agreements between the property owners and the City Council of Barcelona, although it is not a heritage-protected facade, the new residential building restores the facade of the original corner residential building. Additionally, the proposal also includes adding a level above the original building and extending it to the right to incorporate the plot on València Street 595.

The facade proposal arises from the enhancement of the original building located at the corner between València and Rogent streets. For this, the original restoration is assumed as the starting preexistence. The restoration aims to maintain the colors, construction systems, moldings, and decorative elements representative of the original building.

Regarding the proposal for new intervention, it focuses solely on raising one level above the original building and expanding the volume corresponding to the neighboring plot.

The strategy used to relate the preexistence and the expansion is the void. From this, a proposal is articulated that integrates the entire set and gives coherence to the project based on this indissoluble unit of action. Thus, the characteristics that link and relate the preexisting void and the proposed void are:

The void as a unit of action. The dimensions of the facade and the distance between the opening and the solid part are maintained between the original facade and the new intervention. This unit is what organizes the composition of the facades and allows for the identification of the base (single or grouped void at the ground floor), the shaft (reference proportion of the void), and the crowning of the building (increasing the slenderness at the top level).

The reinterpretation of the frame. The decorative frame of moldings is transformed into a functional perimeter frame in L-profile. This profile simultaneously resolves the junction between the balcony structure and the facade cladding, and constructively addresses the arrival of the railing and the guide for the shutters.

The filter. The filter solution as an element of protection, light and climate control, and privacy, a Barcelonan and Mediterranean solution, is resolved with wooden shutters with a metallic perimeter frame that, through a hinge and a guide, allows it to be folded. Folded laterally, like ears perpendicular to the street just like those of the original building, the system also allows for their fixation, achieving greater protection from oblique views from the outside and emphasizing the projection of the interior of the house towards the exterior.

The glazed interior closure. A double glass pane is proposed, which again emphasizes the relationship between the interior and the exterior and, along with the position of the railing and the shutters, peels away the facade plane.

The rhythm of the addition. The addition located above the original building is proposed as a gallery or upper loggia understood from the preexistence. Formed by folding shutters that, once opened, create a rib structure of the same proportions and rhythm as the rest of the folding shutters on the facade, achieving uniformity in the proposal.

The materiality and the colors. The shutters, railings, stucco, and glass are existing materials in the original building and are also proposed with harmonious tones drawn from the building's color palette to achieve overall coherence.

In conclusion, the project's facade identifies and highlights the restored original building, intervening in the rest of the facades with a language and compositional rhythm resulting from the reinterpretation inherent to the preexistence. Furthermore, in reference to the facade length of the neighboring buildings, this distinction between the original building and the new intervention aligns with the urban scale of the neighborhood.

The heating and domestic hot water systems for each home are of the air-to-water heat pump type. Each home has its own heat pump and an interior unit of the Hydrobox type for the production of ACS, independently controlled by each home. The aerothermal heat pumps supply more useful energy in the form of heat than the electrical energy they consume, potentially resulting in savings of up to 40% compared to a conventional heating system if used properly.

The ventilation is through a double-flow mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery, with supply and return conducted through a duct system.

Air is supplied to each room and extracted through bathrooms and kitchens up to the top floor. This system provides comfort to air quality and energy savings through ventilation exchange. It improves the values established in the DB HE and DB HR of the CTE by 18.75% since the building envelope has been designed to be a nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB). The energy rating of the building is AA. A in non-renewable primary energy consumption and A in carbon dioxide emissions. This implies a minimum energy consumption of 50kWh/m2 per year.