Studio Banana TV interviews La Panadería, authors of the Casa + o -, a radical housing project in Alcalá de Guadaira, near Seville.
Concept
The + or – house is a line of research which formulates housing production strategies to facilitate the user’s participation in the design and/or construction process, and also optimise people’s financial resources over time by building in stages. To this end, different typologies to be proposed that permit spatial flexibility and make the user a participant in the promotion by means of new management models.
The + or – house concept arose in response to the housing situation, with its fundamental link to investment and speculation that has generated obsolete urban and housing models which less and less people can identify with, and prices which are increasingly out of their reach.
The + or – house is being developed in specific experiments and specific projects in an attempt to ensure that the design process and the practical implementation of these ideas become part of a critical analysis.
We think it is important to propose building typologies and systems that are in step with today’s inhabitation styles. We believe we also have to reappraise housing management models to make their resources more flexible, provide different purchasing options and allow the dwelling to the built in stages. This should ultimately facilitate people’s access to housing in accordance with the particular situation of each individual or group.
Alcalá 01
The first experiment in + or – houses is Alcalá01, a building containing eight apartments in Alcalá de Guadaira (Sevilla), in which the users take part in the design and finishing process of their own homes, defining the degree of finish they want or can afford. The users can personalise their dwelling according to their own idea of a home, their needs and their economy with a “+ or – finished house”.
The apartments were marketed via a website, www.casamasomenos.net, in which users could gather detailed knowledge about each of the homes in the different finishing standards on offer (+ or -).
Location
The building is located in an outer suburb of Alcalá de Guadaira where land prices are relatively low, which has permitted an affordable final cost of these dwellings. Nevertheless, this zone is near the centre of Alcalá and has a good motorway connection to Seville. This situation makes the most of the local and metropolitan scale in a consolidated urban area that has not lost its city character. The plot has a southeast-facing slope, which allows the building to be stepped and provides views towards the Oromana Pine Forest.
Material
This zone is in the throes of a transformation process in which a modest, popular approach can be seen in people’s lifestyles, the typology of their homes and their building materials. This project strives to use local references, adopt them and reinterpret them. It uses ceramic components as material for unions and contrasts between popular and modern styles. Sections of ceramic lattices are installed to filter the southern light and views between neighbours, while at the same time reinforcing the sense of inside-outside permeability, permitting the enjoyment of outdoor spaces with a high degree of intimacy.
Construction system
The buildings structure has been resolved with metal columns and beams to hold the composite decking slab. The skin that wraps around the structure and encloses each dwelling consists of 29 cm thick thermoclay in which gaps have been left for the fenestration and its metal frames, through which the residents can go outside to the patio or terrace. The floor slabs are finished by polishing the concrete poured on top of the composite decking, an option that lends itself well to the + or – concept. Users have the option of leaving the polished concrete just as it is for their floors, or alternatively, putting any other sort of paving on top of it. The ceiling sheeting can also be left bare, painted or be used as backing for a drop ceiling.
Housing typology
Popular Andalusian architecture has an inhabitation style that suits the local climate, in which the outdoor spaces are very important and relate to the indoor space through hallways, galleries, patios, terraces, balconies, etc., all of them places with a deep spatial richness.
The regulations now in force and the market rules are forcing these sorts of spaces to gradually disappear from homes due to their low market value, in spite of their tremendous utility. The homes of users with modest resources are the ones that are least likely to have these spatial qualities, as their dimensions have generally been reduced to a minimum.
In this promotion, the majority of the apartments are small to make them more affordable for users. At the same time, however, the outdoor spaces, patios and terraces play a prominent role, multiplying the inhabitable space to a large degree and permitting an indoor-outdoor transparency that extends the horizon of the house visually.
In this approach, these spaces have the advantage that their construction cost per square metre is substantially lower than the indoor spaces. Thus, making the most of the allotment slope, we propose stepped dwellings interspersed with outdoor spaces.
All the homes are different in order to increase their adaptability to the context and the outdoor space, although two basic housing typologies are proposed: on the one hand, apartments covering roughly 45 m2, and on the other, duplex homes that total between 70 and 80 m2.
Design process
We have noticed that quite a high percentage of buyers reform their newly acquired homes before they move in: they knock down partitions and finishes, they move fittings and so on until the arrangement is just the way they want, with the additional cost that this means for the final price. However, some building materials that are left in view lower the construction cost and also have their own particular beauty if they are well built.
Architectural proposals are often designed for developments whose final customers are unknown. How can we design a house if we don’t know the user’s specific needs? Everyone has their own, unique idea of the finishes they want or that their house can have, with more or less luxury, more or less austerity and more or less designed.
We think a better option in this case would be to define an inhabitable space, with outdoor areas that can be taken over and minimal finishes so that each user can make a personal choice about the way to finish their home.
That is why in every home, we give the client a range of options for various aspects of the house. Starting with one basic option, each person can add (option +) or subtract (option -) components, with a consequential increase or decrease in the final price of the house corresponding to each decision.
The basic option was the one that was chosen most often by users. The finishes in this option are sufficiently rough to give each user a chance to transform and improve them according to their tastes and requirements. In this way, we have broadened the users’ opportunities to participate. The houses are not handed over as a finished object, but as a space that users gradually take over in time …
