Social Housing buildings in Torrent, Valencia

Torrent, Valencia. Spain | 2023

Valencian Housing and Land Entity

The housing of our time does not yet exist. This phrase, used by Mies van der Rohe almost a century ago, could well be used today, although it is true that awareness of the situation has been raised and the advances in collective housing are great and well-directed. However, we must achieve domestic structures in keeping with the social melting pot of our times, capable of being easily built and maintained, typologies resulting from industrialized guidelines, and more sustainable, durable, and recyclable materials. The project gives shape to and materializes these challenges through a 'symmetrical' typology around a functionally fixed nucleus formed by the home or kitchen, the place for meeting and eating together, as well as personal hygiene. The rest of the house is made up of dimensionally identical spaces around it, capable of being converted into bedrooms, living, working, playing, and personal development areas. These rooms can be combined and completed with two outdoor areas, a balcony and an area linked to the common access gallery to the house, ambiguous limits capable of being incorporated into the domestic activity and which stimulate relations between the interior and the exterior. The typology is dimensioned in such a way that it can revolve around its central axis, achieving a palindrome house with an open concept, with a double orientation, both solar and functional. 

From here, the overall solution is achieved by repetition of the type. The result is a building with a 14-meter centreline, oriented north-south, in which the vertical access bodies are made profitable by limiting them to two and opting for the system of galleries or corridors on each floor, which allows the community to be offered a series of relationship spaces designed to be appropriated by the inhabitants, places for relationships, meetings and leisure in domestic life. The galleries expand in their connection to each dwelling so that the house has an immediate exterior space of sufficient dimension to be used for multiple activities, an extension of an immediate interior that is also conceived as a polyvalent room. This surface seeks to favor ambiguous, resilient, and useful spaces for everyday and exceptional situations such as pandemics.

Awards

Mention | Ideas Competition Social Housing building in Torrent, Valencia | 2023