Contemporary

In line with the previous post (183), referring to this “new” way of conceiving architecture, we want to share this magnificent example of reusing material with you.

Again, wall structures and materials of mineral origin are imposed.

We want to thank this young team of architects for their generosity in sharing this really interesting and innovative project with us.

This case would be quite an ordinary rain screen façade with a lightweight steel frame main wall and a cladding, if it were not for the reflective membrane. This layer achieves air-tightness all around the building and moisture protection of the main wall, allowing the exterior board not to be a cement board, as is the standardised Knauf system.

It's difficult not to be moved by the interior atmosphere created by the prefabricated blocks used in the construction of rice silos. Those spaces were not originally designed to be occupied, but we can now enjoy them thanks to their rehabilitation.

This simple block piece, with its sloping planes and small ventilation openings that also permit light ingress, offers a wealth of lights and shadows, enhanced by the curved shape of the silo itself. The light is soft and uniform.

Recycling is a must. When recycling old brick walls, we tend to think that the recyclable element is the brick; we need to separate it from the rest of the elements and clean the mortar. It is cleverer to understand that a wall is much more than a brick, and thus, we can recycle it as panels! We reuse the small element, that is, the brick, and we benefit from the work of the craftsman of the time when the original building was erected. 

A light highly-prefabricated panel over a heavy handmade wall, a contradiction that works.
A heavy concrete panel will imply having mass on the outside of the thermal insulation, as those solutions are commonly insulated from the inside. If the objective is having this thermal inertia in the inner side of the insulation, the solution is good: a heavy interior wall insulated over its outer face and a low-weight panel so as not to overload the façade where it is not necessary.

This single-family house in Lleida, by the architect Josep Bunyesc, has two important premises:

Pay attention to how this elegant wooden curtain wall resolves the front of the slab, ensuring the appropriate fire sectorisation and minimizing the need of transoms. A simple wooden rib closes from the inside the gap between the pavement and the glass.