A project launched by Barcelona’s Municipal Institute of Housing and Renovation (IMHAB), a new eight story residential building redefines the urban landscape of Distrcit 22@. Integrated into the fabric of Cerdá’s expansion grid, the building covers the preexisting party wall and respects the alignments along the street, the chamfer corner, and the passageway, reinforcing the area’s architectural continuity. The top three floors contain one-bedroom flats for elderly people, below are four levels of two-bedroom subsidized rental apartments, and the ground floor is reserved for temporary lodgings. This stepped organization of the program made it possible to widen the patios of the upper levels, where the smallest dwellings are concentrated, and thus improve the intake of natural light throughout.

On each floor, twenty homes surround a central walkway, which acts as an elevated street. It traverses a sequence of five patios and landings, each of the latter of which serves four apartments. The entrances are characterized by wooden lattice boxes that filter light and air, protecting privacy without loss of ventilation.

The eighth floor offers communal facilities for the senior residents and includes laundry, drying zones, a sunroom, urban food gardens, and multipurpose spaces. Above all this, a large glazed roof wraps the central patios, turning them into a bioclimatic atrium that serves as a solar collector in winter and a thermal chimney in summer.

Finally, the ground floor incorporates a garden-courtyard connected to the walkway, allowing natural ventilation in the garage and providing fresh air to the atrium, which is esential to its thermal performance. The prefabricated concrete structure, the wood with its hygroscopic capacity, and the acoustic claddings in the patios all contribute to the creation of a comfortable and energy-effiicent intermediate space.