The architects based their design on a simple concept that is low-cost, sustainable and playful, experimenting with the standard ideas on social housing.
Carabanchel Social Housing
Design Team: Foreign Office Architects
Location: Madrid, Spain
Status: Completion 2007
Foreign Office Architects gave bamboo a leading role in the Carabanchel Social Housing project. There were two main reasons for doing so: it's eco-friendly and it's comfortingly cosy. Operating within a severely limited budget, the Carabanchel Social Housing project is 100 social housing units on the outskirts of Madrid. Regulations set the number of units and the percentages of every size. The maximum height was also a constraint, but not the alignment within the rectangular plot.
Design Team: Foreign Office Architects
Location: Madrid, Spain
Status: Completion 2007
Foreign Office Architects gave bamboo a leading role in the Carabanchel Social Housing project. There were two main reasons for doing so: it's eco-friendly and it's comfortingly cosy. Operating within a severely limited budget, the Carabanchel Social Housing project is 100 social housing units on the outskirts of Madrid. Regulations set the number of units and the percentages of every size. The maximum height was also a constraint, but not the alignment within the rectangular plot.
Given the adjacency to the future urban park and the North-South orientation of the site, our proposal is to compact the volume within the given height to provide a private garden for the units on the eastern side and to produce double aspect units facing both gardens. In order to achieve this, the units became elongated tubes that connect both facades. Thanks to the compactness of the block, we succeeded in providing fully glazed facades for all the exterior surfaces. The facades have been lined with a 1.5m wide terrace which provides a semi-exterior buffer space enclosed with bamboo screens mounted on folding frames. The screens protect the glazed surfaces from the strong East-West solar exposure, and are able to open to the side gardens when desired.Our target was to provide the maximum amount of space, flexibility and quality to the residences, and to erase the visibility of the units and their differences into a single volume with a homogeneous skin which is able to incorporate a gradation of possibilities.
The primary architectural effect of the building is not dependent on the architects vision, but as an effect of the inhabitants choice, as if the facade was a register at any given moment of a cumulative effect of individuals choices.
The primary architectural effect of the building is not dependent on the architects vision, but as an effect of the inhabitants choice, as if the facade was a register at any given moment of a cumulative effect of individuals choices.
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