Studio Banana TV interviews Javier García Solera, author of the elderly people’s apartment block in Benidorm, Spain.
The project arose from two simultaneous projects for two tower blocks —for elderly and young persons— on both sides of the street and two open spaces, which would surround them and together form a complete park open for public use. After the jury’s decision, we were awarded only one of the two parts comprising what we had originally designed a single project.
With this intention, the varied options for vertical construction were explored, allocating the ground floor, first floor and one of the upper floors to common uses and establishing continuity between the building and the green area that will surround it in the immediate future.While the horizontal continuity of the dwellings served in other projects as a natural way to intensify the relationship between neighbors (like on a traditional street), other means are required in a tower block to strengthen the relationship between neighbors and achieve a higher degree of community living than that resulting from merely belonging to the same residents’ association.
The uses are arranged so that all the common floors will be enjoyable to use by residents because of their suitability to their needs and the proposed relationship with the surroundings. On the ground floor, up to three areas of exterior use can be added to the internal program. On the first floor, and as a prolongation of the ground floor, there is extensive communication with the gardened zone and the embankment separating from the street and offering shelter at the foot of the building. On the third floor, next to the areas for games and communal activities, there is a large terrace that can be appropriated for multiple activities and which defining a space that is a observation terrace. This faces in all directions seeking distant views and the best sunlight at each hour of the day and in the different seasons of the year.
Exposed concrete is used for all elements uniting the building enclosure and structure and the rest of the façade is designed with metallic elements that create a variety of sun filters, defining the final formal identity of the whole.
