MENTION CATALONIAN PUBLIC HOUSING AWARD | 2010

This building is a public residential complex for young people, placed next to four high standard office blocks in 22@ business district in Barcelona. All five buildings are part of the same scheme, and they are conceived as a series of prisms that slide one next to the other, all of them parallel to the sea.

The buildings vary in height, and successfully connect all the empty spaces around them with the streets surrounding the scheme. It is a different approach to the traditional closed city block. Despite the difference in use, the shape and volume of the residential complex is identical to the surrounding office buildings.

The façade has been clad with two completely different textures: dark grey pre-cast concrete and aluminium panelling. One of them feels extremely light, and the other one is the complete opposite, but they both ensure very sharp and crisp edges and finishes. The one supports the other in perfect balance. As described by the poet and painter Narcís Comadira: “…it is as if a hand was holding a weightless stone”.