Barceloneta

Photographic report on users of a building of thirty rental apartments located in the neighborhood of Barceloneta.

The residential use reconstructs the perimeter of the block and the inner courtyard is partially occupied with a children’s facility, freeing the rest of the first floor as a newly created free space for the use and enjoyment of citizens. By unifying the access to the facility through a double height, pedestrian circulation and the visual relationship between the interior and exterior of the block through the street is also favored.

“Sometimes we architects have professional commissions in which we do not know the end user of the buildings we have to design. This was the case of the rental housing building we completed a little more than a decade ago.

That is why, whenever we have the opportunity, we try to return to the projects after some time has passed. Because I think it is as important to listen to the clients at the beginning of a project as it is to observe the users of the building when they have already lived in it. This helps us to check our mistakes and also our successes. In the current report there is no preparation of the photographic set. We had access to several of the homes and were able to observe how each user, with his or her personal style, has interpreted the space in a very similar way to how we thought of it years ago.”

Ana García.
Full project:  NeuronaLab