Architects: CRAB Studio
Location: Vallecas, Madrid, Spain
Design Team: Peter Cook, Gavin Robotham, Salvador Perez Arroyo
Photographs: Courtesy of CRAB Studio
The area of Vallecas on the south-eastern edge of Madrid is being developed towards an eventual population of 100,000. Together with the office of Salvador Perez arroyo, we have designed a social housing block to provide 97 apartments and a small group of shops and kiosks at street level.
The concept has been developed from an earlier Master Plan proposal for the nearby community of Pinto where the habitable buildings were to be lifted up away from street level and the ground treated as a ‘free city’ of kiosks and ephemeral facilities where the serendipitous activity of a town can be recreated. Moreover, in both projects the intention is to use the rooftops for facilitated recreation: nets for ball games, running tracks, etc.
The Vallecas housing develops a wide range of apartment-types around a reciprocal system of lift/stair zones and large internal light and ventilation tubes. The periphery of the building (a 70m x 1 m x 9 floor strip) is modeled to allow the maximum exploitation of view and cooling lines. The undulation of form thus created is percolated by careful grouping of a single window opening type. This in turn is modulated by a ‘double eyelash’ of shutters that can augment the breeze-catching, sun-shading potential of the layout.
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- Courtesy of CRAB Studio
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- Courtesy of CRAB Studio
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- Plan 01
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- Ground Floor Plan 01
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- Elevation 01
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- Model 01
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- Perspective 01
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- Perspective 02
Very inspiring project. Interested to see how it progresses – thanks for sharing.
this is disgusting.
I´m afraid that budget’s limitations eliminated the peripherical strip, destroying the concept of the project. I think there is a failure in the approach to the real conditions on project, not taking into account the lack of budget and proposing a non-build-able project which loses its architectonic value when it is built.