Luis Fernández-Galiano   The work of Harquitectes encourages to propose a new version of the Vitruvian triad. Instead of the Latin terms that have carved in stone the message of the Augustan architect, a carefree formulation in plain language: appropriate, attractive, afford

Cristina Pardal, Ignacio Paricio   A well-known Barcelona architect, when introducing Harquitectes during a recent seminar, referred to the new aesthetic proposed by “that school of Vallès.” That “vallesana” imagery is not coincidental, but in fact emerges from an approximation to for

Iñaki Ábalos   Harquitectes is a collective that represents well a way of doing in today’s context. A small collective with a clear focus on an issue at once broad and narrow, and that we could sum up in two words: matter and air. Their work includes an interesting

Harquitectes   Spain   The house sits on a site with a deep slope covered with trees and undergrowth. The project is set out to build without harming the place, so the house sits on a rock platform which is also used as an exit and garden. Both architects and developers ag

Harquitectes   Spain   The house was for a young couple without children, with some conventional programmatic needs (a garage, three bedrooms, a study, etc.). The triangular plot of some 400 m² was part of a subsidized land promotion. In the process, the client’s requireme

Harquitectes   Spain   On the same plot where the Vallès School of Architecture goes up, the project won a competition in which three challenges were posed: to provide accommodation for architecture students, to achieve the Minergie Swiss energy certification (staying belo

Harquitectes   Spain   The school is located in the urban center of Sabadell, at a corner where two buildings aligned with the street create a wide courtyard with a sports hall inside the block. The project intervenes only in the oldest building (1959), housing the prescho

Harquitectes   Spain   Flanked by party walls on a lot that stretches deep inward from the front border, this house is composed of a succession of volumes that have been deliberately set back to obtain the best possible light and views, and are arranged amid small courtyar

Harquitectes   Spain   Not so many jobs begin like this one, with an owners’ list of wishes and hopes for their new home. A list much closer to the principles and values architects usually work with, often secretly, than the ordinary expectations of those couples facing th

Harquitectes, dataAE   Spain   Located in the UAB campus in Cerdanyola del Vallès, the ICTA-ICP building is a research center in environmental science and paleontology. In tune with its function, from the beginning the building was designed according to sustainability criteria. Th

Harquitectes   Spain   This public facility houses an adult education center, a language standardization consortium, and a hotel on a triangular plot in the Les Corts district. Two of the three sides of the site are defined by the heritage-listed frontage of the former Pla

Harquitectes   Spain   Three starting points: understanding the historic value of Lleialtat Santsenca (1928), an old working class cooperative in the Sants neighborhood; knowing to the detail the building’s (physical) state to maintain as much as possible; and being sensit

Harquitectes   Spain   Located in a residential complex of L’Escala, the house goes up on a rectangular-shaped plot with a gentle topography, facing north-south and without preexisting conditions, neither vegetation nor built elements. The program was simple, a second resi

Harquitectes   Spain   On a plot without salient features, the project took as starting point the restrictions marked by the geotechnical study, which showed that the first meters underground had a low resistance capacity. To avoid a deep foundation, not recommendable for

Harquitectes   Spain   The stone wall that marked out the boundaries of the estate went around the whole site, revealing just the tops of the trees inside. The materiality and the irregularity of the geometry of the wall endowed it with a special character and presence, bu