The starting point for the programme was the design of a group of dwellings with a surface area of around 200 m2, in a central area of Barcelona, on a corner plot facing practically south. The floor plan of the dwellings was designed according to the traditional layout corresponding to the lifestyle of the country's upper middle class: day areas, night areas and service areas with the usual independence of circulation.
The façade was designed with two fundamental ideas in mind: the exact formal adaptation to a specific technology and the attempt to reduce and minimise the excessive scale of the complex. With regard to the first idea, it should be noted that the façade forms a screen independent of the entire building, with its own supporting structure. This was done because, given the current low quality of construction labour, it seemed interesting to test this independence, which allows a single specialised team to devote a minimum amount of time to the most demanding work on the façade. A series of pillars rise from the ground, aligned with the structural module of the entire building. From these pillars rises a light metal structure that supports the entire façade. This is interrupted by 45% recesses marking the separations between dwellings and slightly isolating the respective galleries. These recesses correspond, logically, to a pillar on the ground floor, on which a small triangular structure is placed to support these recesses. The stone pieces that make up the railing and the cover of the roller shutters that close off all the terraces from the outside are dry-hung from the metal structure of the façade. These pieces are placed flush, except at the points where the structure passes through, where this would be practically impossible. To cover these points, white artificial stone flashings are superimposed. The length of these flashings varies depending on whether they cover only the thickness of the slab or the thickness of the cantilevered beam that supports that slab. On the two upper railings, which have no protection against rainwater, other flashings are placed at the junction of each piece. With regard to the second idea, it was considered that, for a minimum of continuity in the urban environment, it was necessary to reduce the excessive scale of the block with details on another scale. In general, a very important part of modern architecture is guilty of offering people, at close contact and immediate view, a type of surface and texture designed for a less close view or according to a design process that is too abstract, too ‘composite’ on the project drawing. Concern about this fact has been fundamental in the work in question, although we are not very sure about the positive results obtained, because perhaps the overall scale of the block still seems to dominate excessively.
