© Marko Bradic

• Architects: PXParchitecture & Partners , David Garda Taller de Arquitectura
• Location: Guatemala City, Guatemala
• Local Architect / Supervision: Modulo Arquitectura
• Landscape Architects: Maria Calderón
• Structural Engineers: Arrivillaga Engineers
• Area: 1500.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: Marko Bradic

© Marko Bradic

From the architect. Consists of a five-story apartment building that takes advantage of the topographic condition of a steep slope, while promoting an exceptional panoramic view of the city framed by the surrounding mountains. From the access road, the view is limited to two floors hence it manages to minimize the visual impact, placing the building harmoniously in a residential environment dominated by the presence of single-family homes.

© Marko Bradic

The small plaza parking is complemented by a mezzanine parking for visitors with a direct access from the street. The elevator is contained in a glass column to enhance the open and transparent character of M-Apartments. The front steps are immediately visible from the entrance and the sunscreen made of natural wood offers a warm integration with the environment where conifers predominate. The main entry is enhanced by a set of counter-posed vertices showing steel and wood at moments, showing masonry in others depending the angle.

© Marko Bradic

Section

© Marko Bradic

The tower is 5 stories high (3 under street level), while the building center line sits below the square parking, thus leaving the service sector comfortably as a separate tower.

© Marko Bradic

Plan 1

© Marko Bradic

M-Apartments consists of 5 apartments, one per floor, generating a “floating” condition on the site and thus enhancing a sense of freedom that is achieved at the level of architectural expression through the access of light and natural ventilation.

Model

To respect the privacy of the neighbors, window visors were used to re-direct the view inwards onto the south-west side walls while generating maximum aperture towards the valley on the north-west.

© Marko Bradic

The housing solution consists of open, high-rise spaces largely as a result of opting for steel structure in order to allow a much distributive flexibility while maximizing the useful surface.

Construction finished in 2014 with a covered area of ​​approximately 1,500 sqm.

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© Salva López

• Architects: MESURA
• Location: Barcelona, Spain
• Architect In Charge: Marcos Parera
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Salva López

• Contractor: Fonfas

© Salva López

A couple, a traditional house in the Empordà and one dream.

Houses should evolve along with its users.

Ana María and Manuel made the decision of spending as much time as possible in their summerhouse in Sant Mori, a rural village located between Figueres and Girona. Among forests and fields, this particular place offers their inhabitants the typical landscape of the Empordà. 

© Salva López

The objective was to recuperate the views lost in the small enlargement project and the old swimming pool area, taking profit of the stepped zone in the land slope. We had the opportunity to revitalize the noblest part of the area, and to give this place a different way of living with new exterior and interior limits and comfort parameters for this new period.

© Salva López

The house had been designed to be used and enjoyed by one family during summer months and holidays. Up to now it was too big and impractical to live in during the whole year.

MESURA’s proposal was to adapt the floor with access to the garden and restore an old and forgotten kitchen (as there was a bigger kitchen integrated in the noble floor), with the idea to transform it in the new heart of the building.

© Salva López

NEW SPACE – SAME IDENTITY

Can Blasco-Nicolau, located in the historic old quarter of the medieval village of Sant Mori, had a large kitchen/dining room/living room area on the ground floor, which was used in the holiday period. Nevertheless, the existence of an old kitchen in this floor was the perfect opportunity in order to provide a more efficient use of this area and a new life to the building, in particular during cold winter months.

© Salva López

The Project planned a complete rehabilitation of the kitchen with a total opening to the contiguous terrace and an additional covered opened area which was going to be used as daily dining room and small living room.

The already special qualities of the building with its enormous personality have been maintained and strengthened. We could say that the new reform does not compete but improves its original identity. 

Floor Plan

In our first visit we discovered that the kitchen was closed to the exterior area (except for a small window) and covered by an excellent Catalan vault that rested on walls. Therefore, it was clear the need to open the kitchen with a new expansion that profited the vault and linked both rooms maintaining the typical structure of the house.

Some years ago, in 1999, a small porch had been built. It had an unidirectional structure along the façade and it had been one of the most lived areas by the client in the hottest summer afternoons. This fact was relevant to us. It was important to strengthen this small area in order to build a new dining/living room interconnected with the porch and at the same time homogeneous to the garden.

© Salva López

From a structural and economic point of view, as well as from the environmental and visual impact (it is a protected house according to POUM in 2009, documented by the architect Amador Ferrer), this small intervention was an excellent solution because it didn’t incur in added volume but only redrew and completed its own irregular and fractured facade.

Section

Following the line of the facade would let us profit an old pilaster (although its height was insufficient, 1,40m) and save on foundations considering the problems with the existing basement floor. In this way it was possible to build a roof without the need to place a pillar in a unidirectional structure (formed by one HEB-200), supported on the existing pilaster, and built with a concrete die to reach the minimum required height.

© Salva López

This unidirectionality allowed us to reach a total flexibility in the roof nogging, with two differentiated levels: the first one at 2,20 m in order to reduce the access area and to find a more humane dimension for the dining room. The second one sought the maximum spatial spaciousness (3,5m) to have a skylight (luthern) and contact with the exterior.

Consequently, the project was formalized thanks to its own structural response and therefore to the esthetical result.

© Salva López

Blasco-Nicolau Project is an effort to reduce to a minimum the strictly functional and structural aspects, with the objective to reach maximum spatial quality. The use of indoor areas with generous dimensions and opened to the landscape has let us improve its relationship with the environment and also experience a different relationship with Sant Mori’s natural surroundings.

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