Vilassar de Mar, Barcelona – Spain

The house is located on a plot between rectangular-shaped medians of very elongated proportion, with a narrow facade to the four-meter street facing east on the second line of the sea, in an urban area of ​​medium density, mostly occupied by old Town houses and low-rise multi-family blocks of new construction.

The residential program is distributed on the ground floor plus three, with the garage, indoor access street and playground for children on the ground floor, night program on the first level, the day area on the second and a seating area with terrace and main room under cover. The house is aligned to the street, along the land it is through the core of stairs and a large interior patio, through which the elevator runs, which interstitial spaces, services and kitchen are organized and ventilated, as well as the dependencies located at the bottom of the plot. Through this cadence of open and closed spaces, both in plan and in section and the commitment to open skylights and holes in these internal spaces, it is sought to provide natural lighting and cross views within the building itself, breaking the perception of being in a container of such extreme proportions as well as improving the habitability and comfort of the users.

The façade is composed using the elements of traditional architecture in the area: holes in the enclosure wall, blinds with adjustable louvers, in this case aluminum and roller shutters, balconies with blacksmith railing and continuous smooth stucco finish, in our case White color. We line the road access door, the pedestrian and technical and meter records with a metallic sheet painted strong blue, unifying the different elements, clearly marking the basement of the house, but at the same time blurring the presence of an element, the from the garage door, oblivious to the surroundings. The facades of the inner courtyard, on the other hand, are composed of large glazed voids, the elevator box being formed with glass blocks and a metal structure, also painted blue, standing as a sculptural element that runs through the 4 levels of the residence. Equally special emphasis is placed on the design of the interior stairs, trying to make them as light structures as possible to ensure they can act as wells for light entry into the lower floors.