Ábalos&Herreros - Housing&City Quaderns Competition - Barcelona, Spain - 1988
“The project selected those topographical data with which it measures itself -the Diagonal, the Mediterranean, the regular grid of the Cerda street layout- using resources derived from Hilberseimer’s Mischbehauung and referring to the complexity of the polycentric city of today: the low-density suburb stuck fast to ground level; the tertiary “fat” building; the mixed-use vertical building: the void as amenity.
Sweep the house clean, remove all unwanted obstructions: the individual dwelling is what is confined between two empty horizontal strips which artificially feed the interior space and two double filters of glass which regulate natural exchanges. In the interior, everything shifts from the immovable (building) to the mobile (furniture), coming increasingly close to the model provided by the office: occasional columns serve the unforeseeable demands of privacy, (The periphery makes culture homogeneous. Techniques serve this process by uniting typological families. The house sees itself reflected in the office. )”
