Barras de Código

Contest for a façade design in Sanxo Llop, Gandia (Valencia). 2010, Aprusa.

The need is to make a façade for a volume unknown in the moment for the call of entries. It’s only known that the use of the building will be commercial and leisure.

The proposal creates a metallic piece called “eeele” that can be installed horizontally or vertically. This permits to create a frame around the ground floor showcases.

Also, the piece has two wings that protect from the sun and at the same time, when it is installed vertically, it creates a gazing game.

Camins d'aigua

Constest for the restoration of the Museum and House Blai Bonet in Santanyí, Mallorca. 2009, Fundació Casa Museu Llorenç Villalonga, Pare Ginard i Blai Bonet.

The project consists in the restoration of the dwelling of the writer Blai Bonet (1926-1997).

2009, june. Façades: Palma Street (left) and Campos Street (right).

It is located in Santanyí. The house is a typical building of Mallorca made of “marés”, a kind of limestone. This house occupies the south of the building site. At the north there is another building, like a shed. Between both buildings there is a courtyard.

2009, june. Details of the courtyard.

The proposal is divided into two actions: restoration of the existing house for transforming it into a museum and elimination of the shed, where there will be a documentation centre dedicated to the writer.

Project.

6x3

International Ceramic Design Contest, Cevisama 2009, Valencia.

The contest proposed the design of a tile. And the answer was an hexagonal form that can be bent and manipulated to create different patterns.

PAC – Personal Activities Capsule

150% competition. Fundación Caja de Arquitectos grants, 2008.

With 150% the foundation proposed to work on an existing city to find new solutions in order to increase the population but saving the city ground.

The answer to that is the CAP or PAC, Personal Activities Capsule, a cube that lives like a good parasite in the existing buildings of Santa Catalina, a neighbourhood of Palma de Mallorca.

Municipal Archive and History Museum in Sallent (VII – park)

Master thesis. July, 2008.

18 Sallent_Park

On a lower level from the basement of the building, but 3 meters up from the Riereta, there is a piece of land that can be connected to the village streets with a staircase. Then, the Park of the Riereta is created.

The piece of land is in fact the remains of the city walls. It was the limit of the village of Sallent before 1912, when the Torres i Amat school was created.

Opening this space to the population would be a way to rediscover existing stone structures, but it also would improve pedestrian mobility.

19 Sallent_Park, paths

The most important points for distributing the park are the Archive and Museum building on the west side and an historical stone structure with an unknown use on the east.

It’s also important the study of the existing trees and plants, in order to get a new garden but with the typical vegetation of the zone.

20 Sallent_Park, pavillion

The stone volume on the east side of the park is transformed into an open pavilion for exhibiting sculptures on its ground floor. Its roof can be used for concerts, theatre, cinema… and also as an entrance to the park.

Municipal Archive and History Museum in Sallent (VI – installations)

Master thesis. July, 2008.

14 Sallent_Air conditioning

The village of Sallent has a Mediterranean climate, but in some cases it is slightly continental because of its central location.

Humidity is the result of the proximity to the Llobregat River. In addition, the project is near the Riereta. Although it is not always filled with water (only when it rains), it has permitted the growing of trees and other plants.

Wind is not very important. The urban structure is formed by narrow streets and its buildings have similar heights that protect the houses from the north wind. The back façade, opened to the south, is protected by the Xipell hill. The park is on a level lower than the surroundings, so it also remains protected from the winds.

The building looks at the Riereta, on the south and east. Meanwhile the worst orientations, north and west, correspond to both streets, Portalet and Clos.

The walls are made of irregular stones. The thickness of them is between 70 and 40 cm. They are studied and its interior transformed according to the Spanish laws, the CTE DB-HE1, Limitación de la demanda energética.

15 Sallent_Plumbing and drainage

The water pipes distribution tries to avoid the archive spaces in order to preserve the documents. The drainage picks up the rain to be used for watering and cleaning of the park.

And, of course, before installing the new pipes, existing ones must be completely removed, taking care of the points were they had been installed near the city wall.

16 Sallent_Electricity

Electric installation is planned to not disturb both structures, existing and new, following the line of the wood beams.

It is adapted to the Spanish law, CTE DB-HE, section HE3 Energetic Efficiency of light installations.

17 Sallent_Fire

Fire protection will be also installed according to the Spanish law CTE DB-SI.

Municipal Archive and History Museum in Sallent (V – details and structure)

Master thesis. July, 2008.

10 Sallent_Restoration details

The structural support of the building will be new columns. At some points, reinforced concrete is added to the stone walls.


11 Sallent_Details, new elements

The access door to the museum is located on Portalet street . Before the restoration, it was the door to the stables. Today only some small constructions remain. They have got no historical value, so they are demolish to build a new volume.

This will be the responsible for connecting the existing building and the city wall. But it also concentrates the hall, the space for temporal exhibitions, the lavatories and it permits to look at the surroundings from its flat roof.

12_Sallent_Structure, columns



The existing walls don’t have stability problems. But they are supposed to do not have enough strength to resist the transformation of the building, especially in the rooms of the archive. In addition, these walls are very irregular.

So a second structure is added. It is formed by iron columns as well as iron main beams.

13 Sallent_Structure, horizontal structure

In some points the horizontal structure is helped by reinforced concrete.

  

The roofs are completely renewed in order to solve the constructive problems of the existing ones. But also to eliminate the bugs that live on its wood beams, most of them termites.

Municipal Archive and History Museum in Sallent (IV – façades and sections)

Master thesis. July, 2008.

06 Sallent_A-B façades_

The main façades are simple. They are cleaned and painted, and on the base of each of them we can see the original stone wall.

The dimensions of the windows and doors are similar to most of the village ones. And most of them are the existing ones, but giving the wall surfaces a new and controlled order.

07 Sallent_C-D Sections_

The interior levels are maintained. They only grow a few centimetres because of the reinforcing of the horizontal structure.

In the museum the volume of the C room, dedicated to the industry of the village, the existing interior of the building is emptied. This is the response to get a more secure structure but also to rediscover the main walls.

08 Sallent_E-f sections_

We get rid of all the unoriginal elements on the back façade. So the wall is shown as it was on its beginnings.

09 Sallent_G section_

The top floor opens to the Riereta with a terrace protected from the north winds due to the pent roofs.

Municipal Archive and History Museum in Sallent (III – floors)

Master thesis. July, 2008.

03 Sallent_Basement and ground floor

The basement, an ancient wine cellar, is renewed to be used as a complement to the museum.

 

There are two spaces. The big one is for conferences, videos and other cultural activities. The small one is for kids, with small and mobile furniture.

The ground floor is where the users can enter into the different spaces. Through Clos Street, n.5, we can go up to the archive. Through n.9, we can visit the Riereta Park. And the access to the museum is on
Portalet street, from where the visitors will discover part of the building between interior and exterior, like a labyrinth that will guide them through the history.

04 Sallent_First and second floors_

On the first floor, the museum is keeps growing and turning around the archive. It is connected with the city wall with a little bridge that is renewed and from where the landscape can be admired.

On the contrary, the archive is closed to protect its documents that are received in this point.

The second floor turns the museum into an open space with a flat roof that is considered part of the exhibitions. From here we can “visit” the surroundings due to some explanations on the panels installed on the roof.

Meanwhile, in the archive there is space for saving the documents and for the offices.

05 Sallent_Third floor and roofs_

On the third floor the archive opens completely his walls to the sights, according to the pent roofs, so the users can relax his eyes. There’s also a flat roof working as an open rest room.

The pent roofs permit the building to adapt to the existing constructions around it.

Municipal Archive and History Museum in Sallent (II – context)

Master thesis. July, 2008.

01 Sallent_Territory_

Chronology

• 100 B.C.         Iberian village, on the Cogulló mountain.
• 12/12/955      A document talks about a piece of land located "ad ipso Sallente" or "next to the Sallent".   "Sallent" means waterfall.
• 1246              Until 1811, Sallent belongs to the Bishop of Vic.
• 1339              Start of the construction of the “Sèquia” (an irrigation ditch). It transports water from Balsareny to Manresa, but it’s no good for the mills of Sallent.
• 1713              Armendáriz’s troop causes a fire in the village.
• 12/24/1747    A flood destroys two arcs of the gothic bridge over the Llobregat River.
• 1826              Torres i Amat, a textile industry, starts using the first mechanical looms of Catalonia.
• 1860               The golden age of textile industry. In the village we can find: 11 industries, more than 600 inhabited buildings, schools…
• 1912               Creation of Orfeó Sallentí and Eléctrica Sallentina.
• 09/1918          Inauguration of the Mancomunitat Library.
• 1931                Beginnings of the work on the near mines.
• 1960               Beginnings of the crisis of the textile. The village population stops growing.



Back façade. Left: photograph, 2008 / Right: model of the project



02 Sallent_Project zone_

The village grew next to the Llobregat River, because water has been very important through its history. From its origins, Sallent was located in the piece of land limited by the Llobregat River, the Cornet River and the Riereta.

Water was also very important to Sallent economical development. It was essential to agriculture and after, it gave energy to textile industry.

On other occasions water was a problem. Often there were floods that destroyed the houses next to the Llobregat River.

Until XIV Century these houses formed the city wall. But in 1464 the Bishop of Vic ordered to renew the systems for protecting the village. Nowadays, we can still find some of these walls.

And between water and stone lies the Project.

Plan of Sallent. Published by Carreras Candi on 1920.

The Project building is located in Clos street, one of the first streets of Sallent, and next to Santa Maria church. So we can think on the building as an important point of defence. In fact, it is near to ruins of the city wall and its own walls (especially those of the ground floor) are very thick for a dwelling building.

Municipal Archive and History Museum in Sallent

Master thesis. July, 2008.

The master thesis can be viewed in UPC Commons. It consists in a case of restoration and a transformation from a dwellings building into an archive and museum.

The project has been done due to the help of the neighbours who let me into their houses.

We will be translating the text of the panels in new posts.

To sum up_

The project is located in Sallent, in the center of Catalonia. This position gives the village an especial character, equidistant from the sea and the mountains, like a crossroad.



The original village was limited by water which gave the population a natural protection: the Llobregat river, Cornet at north and the Riereta at the south, where the project lies.

The water was also the clue to the economic development of Sallent. It gave energy to the textile industry during XIX century and until the middle of XX century. Before that, the rivers were necessary to water the plantations.

Until XIV century the city wall was made by the houses with their own walls. On 1464 the bishop of Vic ordered to introduce new defence constructions.

So, between water and stone lies the project.

Archive and museum: Clos street n.5-9 and Portalet street

The building is located on one of the first crossroads of Sallent. Maybe it accomplishes a defence task as we can read on some texts from XVIII century and see in remainders of the city wall next to the basement.

Nowadays it’s used as a dwelling building, with some parts abandoned like the basement. So we proposed to turn it into an archive and a museum. At the same time, it can be opened to the street and to the back yard where we found the Riereta.

The archive is in the main building, growing high and defining its uses through different floors. From the top floor we can enjoy the view of the mountains and the Riereta.

The museum is located in the small building, arriving through Portalet street. From here we can visit some interior and exterior spaces to discover the building and its relation with the different historical phases.

The basement is opened to cultural activities such as some exhibitions related to the museum, but also other activities. It is divided in two spaces. The big one is used for lectures, videos, etc. The small one is dedicated to children.

The Riereta Park

In the backyard of the building we can find different levels of the city wall, and between them, the small mountain stream known as “la Riereta”. With some staircases, we can connect this new park with the village.

Opening this zone means to rediscover historical structures, but also to improve pedestrian paths.

The Archive and the Museum form the first important point in the park. The second point is an historical structure which nowadays is abandoned. This is transformed into an open pavilion for exhibiting sculptures. His roof can be used for entering the park and also for organizing dramatic works, projecting films…

After studying existing vegetation a new plantation is proposed, always with local species, and at the same time, in relation with exterior and interior pedestrian paths.