57 affordable housing units in Granollers

Granollers, Barcelona

4th prize, competition 2023

Competition launched by Incasòl

Built Area: 8.676,62 m²

The new dwellings are distributed in two blocks oriented North-South (A) and East-West (B), solving one of the blocks of the expansion area that is growing to the north of Granollers, in the Lledoners neighborhood. To the west, there is a boundary with the Lledoner river park, in continuity with the interior of the block, where the homes open through the south and west facades, with a domestic, warm, and comfortable character. To the north and east, the building borders the urban fabric, generating a harder, uniform, and closed facade. The two blocks establish continuity between them through a platform that separates the upper floors from the street, creating a base that extends into part of the block.

The homes in both blocks are pass-through and accessible through walkways located on the south and west facades, facing the interior of the block. The typologies are rationalized through an undifferentiated matrix with a system of central cores. . Thus, the same typology adapts to different orientations, allowing for a through room in the E-W typologies and creating a large space oriented to the south in the N-S typologies.

The typology matrix has a direct correspondence with the structural system. Modulation of all structural and construction elements is chosen to ensure their prefabrication and dry construction for almost the entire building. A wooden structural system is chosen, combining self-supporting CLT module cores and 2 facade portals that optimize the amount of wood used.

The horizontal structure is resolved with CLT slabs with four support points on laminated beams and is completed in situ with a dry solution that ensures compliance with acoustic requirements between the homes.

The organization of the interior spaces of the homes responds to solar orientation and user needs. In the first place, there is a terrace, following the access walkway. Functionally, in addition to serving as a privacy filter, it allows the adjacent interior space to extend, facilitating its opening to the exterior. In the central strip of the floors, liberating the facades, wet cores are arranged, concentrating the passage of installations. The living room, kitchen, and dining room are resolved in a single space, with a through or foreground configuration. In any case, the spatial dehierarchization achieved with the undifferentiated matrix, as well as the central cores with installation passages, allows for the interchangeability of all spaces in the home. The double bedrooms are all of the same dimensions and use the central core strip as an articulating element and filter, generating a clear privacy gradient. The third bedroom is located at the ends of the walkways or is mixed with the stairs.

Working with an undifferentiated matrix, together with the dissociation of the different elements of the bathroom, adapts the typology to various models of co-living units. The dehierarchization of spaces and the visibility of the areas where domestic tasks are carried out promote relationships of equality without conditioning gender roles.

Bioclimatic strategies necessary to ensure comfort in homes that can operate passively 90% of the time are prioritized.

In winter, the orientation of the two blocks allows for direct solar capture. The efficiency of the thermal envelope, the absence of thermal bridges, and good airtightness minimize thermal losses or gains, while the inertia concentrated in the slabs allows for the storage of energy captured in winter and dissipation through nighttime ventilation in summer.

The private terrace allows for the incorporation of a gallery, which, in addition to serving as a buffer space, improves indirect solar gains, allowing for a reduction in energy demand in winter. In summer, this space functions as a sunshade and improves the thermal conditions of the home thanks to the solar protection system of blinds. The other facades incorporate a micro-perforated sheet metal solar protection system that continues the exterior cladding.