ALI BEI. Social housing for the elderly and a Temporary housing center
The project is located in a singular block of the Eixample district, formerly fragmented by the railway and currently opened to new public spaces. Two separate volumes define a large green central courtyard and circulation areas. The building facing the street consolidates the front of the block and the second one is conceived as an isolated building, even separating itself from the limits of the plot to respond to the existing irregular urban voids.
The temporary housing center in the ground and first floor is accessed through an open public passage. The entrance to the dwellings is made through an independent closed lobby and the communications core which opens towards the side with double height spaces. On the ground and roof levels there are common and outdoor spaces (multipurpose room, laundry, orchards, terraces, porches) that expand the way of living beyond the apartments, thus compensating their reduced size.
The single bedroom apartments for the elderly are cross ventilated, with access through an open walkway and entrance gate, an intermediate space that allows the appropriation of the common space and regulates the apartment’s privacy. From the central kitchen the spatial perception is extended by oblique views towards the living room and bedroom with a large sliding door. The terraces extend the living rooms to the outside.
