La Maquinista H-1

Peter Rowe, Har Ye Kan

Description

This project description is an excerpt from the longer article “Urban Block Shapers”. For a comparative analysis and further data including accompanying graphs, please see the article “A Turning Point”.

Located across the street from the H-2 and H-3 Blocks is the H-1 Block by BAU-Barcelona. Occupying a relatively narrow wedge, this narrow eight to nine-storey brick building is right next to the Parc de La Maquinista. With 146 dwellings and 10 retail units, Block H-1 has a built area of 16,300 m² and a floor area ratio (FAR) of 3.13. The site plan opted for an open block typology, so as to provide access to the internal collective garden. The depth of each block is approximately 12 meters, and again is ideal for improving cross-ventilation within each unit that is open on one or two façades. The whole perimeter of each block is elevated on a plinth which is made possible by allowing the underground car park to rise up to one meter above street level, upon which ground floor shops, some collective garden terraces, and some special dwellings are located. Besides creating more defined garden spaces through this elevation, this spatial operation also allows for greater privacy for the domestic spaces above. The layouts of the residential units vary in size from two- to four-bedroom units, including dwellings such as duplex units or units with large terraces on the top of the elevated podium. This diversity in unit types corresponded in large part to BAU-Barcelona’s objective of providing “typological diversity despite [this] being a residential sector with rather homogeneous demands”.

1

“La Maquinista” in Ayuntamiento Área de Urbanismo, eds., Urbanisme a Barcelona: 1999 (Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona, 1999) (Transl. BAU-Barcelona).

Access to the apartment units is provided through distinctive lobby entrances located along the inner court, typically with two units sharing a single lift landing. Unlike the manicured lawns in the MAP project, the internal collective garden here is in the vein of a Mediterranean hardscape court with planters lining the lobby entrances. Again, the use of bricks in earthen colors engenders a sense of coherence with the other three blocks designed by two different architectural firms.