Author: Jaume Terés

Work directors: Jaume Terés, Miquel Àngel Sala (BOMA)

Consultants: Structural: BOMA, Quality surveyor: ACSA Obres i Infraestructures, SA.

Collaborators: Sílvia Forns, Rubén Aragüés, Jordi Cestero (BOMA)

Area: 2694,75 M2

The building volume is defined as a solid body, with a void on the ground floor, which oxygenates the Street San Isidre, while leading the views to the sea. This void creates a ground floor porch where the main entrance is located.

Inside the building, the plant is divided into two strips: the one with common spaces throughout the building length, which distributes traffic between all the spaces, with large openings and distant views towards the sea, and the classrooms strip, with openings of a more appropriate scale for an old town, respecting the environment and protecting the privacy of neighboring homes and classrooms.

The ventilated facade is finished with perforated panels that form the same original geometric pattern mosaic covering the floor of the old house. With the placement of these plates we wanted to put all the emphasis in the past of the site where stands the new building and witness the former existence of the popular shop of Anita.

During the design and construction process, energy and environmental aspects of the building has been enhanced. The building has been designed following the parameters of the LEED energy certification, being one of the first cultural facilities in Spain involved in this process.

Project: Equipamiento Social Ca L’Anita- Estanc de la Punta en Roses

Authors:  exe.arquitectura ( Jaume Valor + Elisabeth Sadurní + Marc Obradó )

Consultants: Etec (budget), Arquitècnics (mechanical), Bernuz-Fernandez (structural), Conrad Torras (graphic design), Green Living Projects (LEED consultant)

Collaborators: Laura Llimós, architect. Marc Abril, architect.

Area: 900 m2

Budget: 1.564.200,00€ PEC

Photography: Conrad Torras

“Enhance the house”. This, and none other, was the objective of the commission that Pere Negre and Engracia Balet entrusted to the architect, whose work on refurbishing the Can Negre farmhouse in Sant Joan Despí would go on for fifteen years, dictated by the yearly profits of its owners. Dressing and transforming the home. Something that Loos had already explained in The Principle of Building (1898): “Let’s say that the architect’s general task is to provide a warm and liveable space. Carpets are warm and liveable. He decides for this reason to spread one carpet on the floor and to hang up four to form the four walls. (…) In the beginning was cladding. Man sought shelter from inclement weather and protection and warmth while he slept. He sought to cover himself. The covering is the oldest architectural detail.”[1]

We simply need to look at photographs from towards the end of the refurbishment process of Can Negre to recognise, above the central window, the gesture that epitomises Adolf Loos’s maxim: the covering. The architecture of J. M. Jujol uses this gesture, which was already evident from the first sketches that documented the reform, to echo the first principle of architecture: protection from the elements.

J. M. Jujol thus reveals the true value of his work. His work not only covers but also reveals, allowing what is natural – the air, the water, the earth, the flora and fauna – to dress the architecture. And this can be seen in the change of render that reverberated with the fluttering leaves of the trees in the garden that faced the façade; hence the main window seeks contact with the earth by means of slender iron bars that could easily be the legs of some great insect living in the surroundings of the old farmhouse; thus he allows the birds to flit across the façade, fluttering by doors and windows whose jambs and lintels gradually disappear until merging into a continuum with the threshold that separates inside from outside; thus the cornice outlines the plane of the façade beneath the sky, undulating and taking on the breadth and texture of the palms that once stood close by and are now long gone.

The architecture of J. M. Jujol was not short of resources. In fact, he accommodated all of them, using them, transforming them and sharing them, uniting emblems, materials and techniques. This is what we see through the eyes of J. M. Jujol; this is how Can Negre was refurbished.

1.COLLECTIVE AREAS 1. Collective Areas

We understand the project as an opportunity to enhance relations and collective activities in the center. Therefore, the building is arranged around a large and sunny private garden, sheltered from the wind and protected from pedestrians’ view, that articulates all the activities.

2.CHARACTER 2. Character

We propose the consolidation of the center’s institutional character as the articulator of the public area by the building’s image, therefore, we use a unique colour (white) in order to unify the different materials used on the facade.

3.RESOURCES 3. Resources

Because of the economic budget constraint of 620 €/m2, we propose to give a hybrid answer, combining local (artisan) techniques and materials, with global (industrial) techniques and materials. This way, we can optimise the resources offered by both sectors. We will use the architectural form as a strategy for sustainability emphasising passive strategies. In short, we are interested in the ability of any project to give a meaning within a specific cultural context using an unprejudiced

attitude allowing us to find opportunities even in the apparent worthless. We propose using particular cultural contexts as opportunities from which to build the project’s strategy. We chose an inclusive and unprejudiced attitude that doesn’t discriminate neither this or that, but opts for this and that.

Adress: C. Pensament, 5 Palma de Mallorca.

Consultants: J.P Rodríguez (structure); Bàrbara Estudillo (quality surveyor); T. Aguilar (mechanical)

Collaborators: Albert Gener, Cristina Oliver.

Area: 530 m2

Budget: 350000 €

Photography: José Hevia

With:

Conxita Balcells
Batlle i Roig
Bru-Lacomba-Setoain
Sophie Demigneux
Joaquín Pérez- Eva Girona
Rita Pinto de Freitas
Sala-Ferusic
Julia Schulz-Dornburg

Moderator: Jordi Adell

RSVP

With: Jordi Adell, Arquitectura-G, La Petita dimensió, David Sebastian + Gerard Puig