Narch Arquitectes dataAE Maira Arquitectes   Spain   This social housing block is organized around an atrium-like central void, optimizing energy efficiency while creating opportunities for encounters among neighbors in the same way that the large landings of the stairs do. Undertaken for the Institut

Marmolbravo MADhel   Spain   Miguel Herraiz and Daniel Bergman – MADhel – and Marina del Mármol and Mauro Bravo – Marmolbravo – built these publicly subsidized rental dwellings for EMVS, Madrid’s Municipal Housing and Land Company, in the eco-neighborhood of the city’s Puente de

08014 arquitectura    Spain   Promoted by the Balearic Housing Institute (IBAVI), this public-housing block is located at Platja d'en Bossa, south of the city of Ibiza. Designed by estudi08014 – Adrià Guardiet and Sandra Torres – the apartment building pursues a certain degree o

Joan J Fortuny Giró Alventosa Morell Arquitectes   Spain   This residential development of the Balearic Housing Institute (IBAVI) rises on a rectangular plot with 54 dwellings above ground – distributed in three levels opening out to terraces or private gardens – and parking underground. Adapting to the very

Ripoll Tizón   Spain   In a heterogeneous urban context, a development of stand-alone buildings serving different purposes, rises this residential building promoted by IBAVI (Institut Balear de l’Habitatge). Comprising nineteen subsidized apartments (VPO) distributed on fi

Peris + Toral arquitectes   Spain   Born out of the Cheap Housing Law of 1929, the Bon Pastor neighborhood went up with 784 one-level homes. Impelled by the Barcelona City Hall's IMHAB (Institut Municipal de l'Habitatge i Rehabilitació), the Bon Pastor Redevelopment Plan involves demol

Christ & Gantenbein   France   More than a hundred social housing units rest on a refurbished base with technical workshops of the RATP (Parisian transport office). The overlapping functions determine the position of the entrances, the vertical circulations, and the resulting urba

Totem Arquitectos Asociados (TAAs)   Spain   The Carabanchel district is the location of this project of the Municipal Housing and Land Company (EMVS), an agency under Madrid’s City Hall. Close to huge urban voids like the Cuatro Vientos airport, which counteract the city’s heat island effect i

MAIO   Spain   The connection of the building with its context is expressed on the ground level, which replicates the urban codes and links the street with the rear garden; and the facade, which maximizes the overhang of the balconies to take up all the outdoor are

Adjaye Associates   United States   Part of an initiative of the non-profit developer Broadway Housing Communities, this mixed-use complex in the historic Sugar Hill district of Harlem sought to give the neighborhood new affordable housing options and also a cultural institution that w

MVRDV   Germany   At the center of the observance of the 500th anniversary of the Fuggerei social housing complex in Augsburg rises this pavilion built with cross-laminated timber (CLT), a work of MVRDV. It harbors the exhibition ‘Fuggerei of the Future,’ which propos

Grand Huit   France   A work of Grand Huit – a cooperative of architects led by Julia Turpin, Marine Kerboua, and Clara Simay –in collaboration with the landscaper Melanie Drevet, this project is part of an effort to mobilize residents and neighborhood associations in the

Peris + Toral arquitectes   Spain   The project consists of 85 social housingunits on a plot previously occupied by the emblematic Cinema Pisa in the city of Cornellà de Llobregat. It is a five-story freestanding building with a wood structure, resting on a ground level with a concrete

Marmolbravo Daniel Bergman Miguel Herraiz   Spain   A work of Marina del Mármol and Mauro Bravo – principals of the architecture firm Marmolbravo – in collaboration with Miguel Herraiz and Daniel Bergman, this stepped apartment building stands at Peña Falconera 2, in Madrid’s Puente de Vallecas distri

Pau Vidal Arquitectura Produccions Vivas Arquitectos   Spain   At Alí Bei 100-102 stands a building containing 49 apartments for senior citizens and 10 temporary accommodations for people in danger of social exclusion. Promoted by the Barcelona City Hall’s Institut de l’Habitage i Rehabilitació (IMHAB), it occup

OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen   France   The competition-winning project set out to renovate and transform the Caserne de Reuilly, a former infantry quarter located in the 12th arrondissement of Paris. Dating from the 19th century, during World War II the Caserne de Reuilly served as a mobi

Lacol Arquitectura Cooperativa   Spain   The la Borda process was launched in 2012, within the context of a program to recover Can Batlló, where a group of neighbors set up a group to collectively address the issue of access to housing through a cooperative system. The architects’ cooperat

straddle3 Yaiza Terré Eulia Arkitektura   Spain   The aprop program for provisional housing launched by the City of Barcelona is designed to offer a swift, efficient, and pragmatic response to emergency situations caused by shortage of housing, keeping neighbors from having to leave gentrified distr

Roldán + Berengué   Spain   The old textile complex is being recovered to join the Barcelona Art Factories network, adding 28,000 m² of public space and, for the first time in this type of intervention, of social housing.  Built in 1905 to store thread, the warehouse is 1

Coll-Leclerc   Spain   This residential development is located close to the transportation hub of Les Glòries – currently under construction and set to become a space for people, as well as a large green lung for the city of Barcelona. Coll-Leclerc’s project proposes an in

Espinet / Ubach Arquitectes   Spain   The Catalan practice of Miquel Espinet and Antoni Ubach has completed this 26-unit apartment building on a leftover plot that borders with the old Can Batlló textile factory, in the Sants neighborhood. The courtyard is the main feature, serving as a

Studio Velocity   Japan   In the 1950s, the Japanese firm Studio Velocity, headed by Kentaro Kurihara and Miho Iwatsuki, reconstructed a residential development in Mihama, a coastal city in Aichi Prefecture. The substantial deterioration of the structure led to the demolition

Jørn Utzon   Denmark   Built in 1959 and in 1963 respectively, the Kingo and Fredensborg houses share one same system of organic growth based on the repetition of the same residential type. In both cases, the main idea is to combine the privacy of domestic life – through i

The Economist   Peter Barber’s work offers a chance for a meeting of minds. On mcgrath road, a side street in Stratford, east London, a 26-dwelling modernist terrace in mustard-coloured brick surrounds a square. The development (pictured) is hard to pigeonhole. Pete

A sensitive interpretation of the genius loci: this is how one could describe the social housing developent that the studio Oliver, Reina, Martín, Moyà & Garcías has executed in Son Gotleu, one of the poorest, most vulnnerable among the neighborhoods

530 Dwellings in Bordeaux Refurbishing the collective housing constructions built during the boom of the 1950s and 1960s is one of the main problems in European cities. A problem that, faced with common sense and talent, can lead to projects that are

Norwich Council Houses Given each year by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Stirling Prize distinguishes the best works built by British architects or studios in the European Union. In 2019 the award went to the council houses on

As the Munch Museum in Olso nears completion, Madrid-based Estudio Herreros – in collaboration with the Norwegian firm MIM-A – has finished a residential block in Sant Boi de Llobregat (Barcelona). Offering a mixture of free-market and price-regulate

Among the numerous challenges of architecture in this day and age is to redensify and repurpose the industrial fabrics that cropped up and grew on what were then the outskirts of our cities, but which are now embedded and trapped in the very heart of

Unlike in the past, this year’s Stirling Prize of the Royal Institute of British Architects seems to have kindled consensus among critics. For example, Oliver Wainwright of the newspaper The Guardian considers the winning building – Goldsmith Street

The Guardian   Oliver Wainwright   Street of 105 homes hailed as high-quality architecture in its most environmentally and socially conscious form. One hundred years since the 1919 Addison Act paved the way for the country’s programme of mass council housing, the prize for the best ne

Vikram Bhatt   Balkrishna Doschi, a master of modernity and teacher of several generations of Indian architects, is the latest receipient of the Pritzker Prize. 

The most unique characteristic of this residential complex comprising twelve social housing units in La Alberca de la Záncara (Cuenca) is its low-cost – but very efficient – building system. These dwellings combine concrete blocks forming three-meter

An important problem in low-cost housing projects developed in rural environments is how these blend with their surroundings, and in this sense the construction system plays a crucial role. In the case of modestly sized dwellings, choosing load-beari

Jesús López Díaz   La vivienda social mínima catalizó los estudios pioneros de Rafael Leoz sobre la estandarización y las leyes de modulación geométrica del espacio, cuyo valor fue reconocido por Le Corbusier, Sert o Jean Prouvé.

Construir en los nuevos ensanches no es lo mismo que trabajar en tramas consolidadas: estas exigen el respeto al hecho urbano; aquellos piden códigos más libres que trascienden los convencionales de la arquitectura, apelando a los de otras disciplina

Sobre el chaflán de una antigua manzana industrial, Álvaro Soto y Javier Maroto han construido para la EMVS de Madrid un edificio de viviendas de realojo que resuelve la difícil geometría del solar mediante dos movimientos. Por el primero, los cuatro

Recuperar para la modernidad la edificación tradicional madrileña de las corralas —con sus galerías abiertas de acceso y sus balcones multifuncionales— fue uno de los objetivos que el equipo formado por Mónica Alberola, Luis Díaz-Mauriño y Consuelo M

En el barrio de Pardinyes, situado en una zona de Lérida con un pasado rural cercano, el estudio barcelonés de Jaime Coll y Judith Leclerc ha levantado un edificio de 44 viviendas sociales en régimen de alquiler (ver AV Monografías 147-148). Debido a

En 2006, el hoy desaparecido Ministerio de Vivienda convocó un concurso de ideas bajo el significativo nombre ‘Hacemos ciudad’, para el desarrollo de siete actuaciones residenciales innovadoras dentro del territorio español (véase AV Proyectos 17). E

En el Monte Hacho, el principal accidente orográfico de la ciudad de Ceuta, los sevillanos José Morales, Sara de Giles y Juan González Mariscal han levantado 127 viviendas de protección oficial, de las cuales 41 unidades son unifamiliares, y el resto

En el nuevo barrio de Móstoles Sur, abrazando premonitoriamente la llamada plaza del Sol, se alza un bloque de viviendas de directriz curva, con tramos de policarbonato azul y magenta que alberga 92 viviendas en régimen de alquiler temporal, locales

El edificio de viviendas de protección oficial más alto de España acaba de estrenarse. La torre Vallecas 20, en el área de Las Suertes, tiene 22 plantas y una altura total de 74 metros. Sus autores son María y José María Hurtado de Mendoza y César Ji

En el municipio madrileño de Villanueva de la Cañada, Mª José Aranguren y José G. Gallegos han terminado una promoción de 255 viviendas de alquiler con opción a compra; de ellas, 194 están destinadas a jóvenes, 51 a mayores de 35 años y el resto, a f

En la avenida de la Peseta, eje del nuevo ensanche del barrio madrileño de Carabanchel se alza un bloque semejante a un apilamiento de contenedores metálicos de colores brillantes. Se trata de las 82 viviendas de protección pública construidas por el

En Barcelona, la clave 10hj identifica un novedoso tipo de equipamiento: las viviendas de alquiler para jóvenes. En el distrito de Horta-Guinardó, Àngels Negre y Félix Solaguren-Beascona han terminado un 10hj de 48 viviendas de 40 metros cuadrados, c

Julián Salas Serrano   De Habitat II a Habitat III