Saturday, December 20, 2008

Morphosis Madrid Social Housing in Madrid Spain

In a suburban Madrid neighborhood of conventional, anonymous housing blocks, Morphosis devised a typology of porosity to suit the social ideals of this project type.

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Photo: Roland Halbe

As an alternative to towering blocks of faceless units, this project explores a radically different social model that integrates landscape and village topologies.
By grafting properties commonly found in detached villas onto this low-income housing project the architects achieved a multi-family living complex with amenities such as loggias, green spaces, and domestically scaled massing that are not normally found in public housing in Spain.
The basic parti is an extruded “J”: a low-rise “village” building, flanked by a tall, slender bar to the North and a lower multi-level bar building to the South.

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Photo: Roland Halbe

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Photo: Roland Halbe

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Photo: Roland Halbe

A layer of landscape overlaid upon a facade composed of a series of open spaces and idiosyncratic punctures combine to break down the institutional nature of the public housing project.

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Photo: Roland Halbe

Open spaces occur on three different scales: small, domestic patios inside the individual residential units, mid-sized public courtyards that punctuate the low residential structure, and the large, communal, landscaped space, the paseo.

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Photo: Nic Lehoux

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Photo: Nic Lehoux

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Photo: Nic Lehoux

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Photo: Nic Lehoux

The landscaped lattice folds up vertically; like a carpet, plant growth covers the flat village and climbs up the taller buildings creating an idyllic refuge from the urban surroundings.
The paseo, shaded by trees and a vegetation-covered trellis, takes the place of a conventional interior lobby.

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Photo: Roland Halbe

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Photo: Roland Halbe

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Photo: Roland Halbe

The design brings open green space to a dense urban milieu. The idiosyncratic topology creates a community-oriented social fabric and challenges the prevalent urban social order.

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Drawing courtesy Morphosis
Plan

Site area: 1.05 hectares
Project size: 22,200 gross square meters
141 two-, three- and four-bedroom units
Completed: 2007

Client: Empresa Municipal de la Vivienda, City of Madrid
Architects: Morphosis
Project Manager: Paul Gonzales
Project Architect: Pavel Getov
Project Team:
Simon Demeuese
Chris Warren
Project
Assistants:
Ed Hatcher
Eui Yeob Jeong
Joachim Reiter
Kurt West

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