24 adaptable homes

Situation Los Turruñuelos, Córdoba
Area 2.100 m2
Year Concurso 2012

Architects
Sol89. María González & Juanjo López de la Cruz

Collaborators
Miguel Rabán & Jongjin Lee

Client
VIMCORSA Viviendas Municipales de Córdoba

Vital Adaptability of the Type. Time in the House.

If we assume that family structures change over the period of occupancy of a home (single person living and working at home – couple – couple with one child – couple with two children – single again – couple with an emancipated child…), we would conclude that a flexible, adaptable house to changing circumstances is desirable. Such a home should allow adjustments to an inevitably evolving program that the conventional living room and three bedrooms do not always respond well to. By adaptability, we do not mean an instant movable layout—something that seems complicated and uncomfortable for daily chores—but rather the possibility for the home to change over the years, just as the lives of its inhabitants change. We aspire for the inevitable dimensional limitations of social housing to be compensated by greater adaptability, enabling the home to exist tailored to its residents, to change as they do, and to acknowledge that time also shapes and determines life and architecture.

Recognizing the variable condition of human habitat is nothing new; we could list common configurations that change throughout different stages of our lives. It’s easy to imagine pre- and post-relationship stages with two or three children, which seem to be the intended norm for housing, requiring different needs. It’s not logical to ignore these situations with a single spatial configuration for the home. From a single individual or couple without children who might prefer a larger living area at the expense of a bedroom, to the possibility of linking a third bedroom to the living room as a workspace, to the typical couple with two children, and later stages where a child leaves home, reducing the number of bedrooms; or even older couples needing space for stored belongings or a guest bedroom for grandchildren. Intermediate or temporary situations, like a single person preferring an open space or a group sharing a larger work area, are also part of this spectrum. All these scenarios are part of the changing nature of life, and a contemporary home—even within social housing limitations—should be able to accommodate them to avoid obsolescence over time.

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Rigid Core and Flexible Perimeter. A Six-floors Tower

The dimensions of the plan defined by the alignments, as well as the distribution of homes per floor, suggest a tower configuration: a central vertical communication core located at the center of mass, surrounded by a belt of installations and an outer, open, and flexible ring associated with light and ventilation. The plan extends from the maximum density at the core to the habitable void at the perimeter. Thanks to the grouping of small spaces and installations in the belt that delineates the habitable zones, and their arrangement in a clean rectangular shape associated with the facade, it’s not difficult to imagine that over time, residents could reconfigure their living space by removing or repositioning partitions. To facilitate this, the flooring and ceiling could be executed in continuity, without interruptions in intermediate partitions, with power and communication outlets placed along the perimeter, and partitions built with dry technology to minimize waste, noise, and dust during reconfiguration. Additionally, the installation bands separating the central communication core from the four habitable spaces of each home act as thick enclosures—dense boundaries that are usually unoccupied—offering greater acoustic insulation compared to other spaces and the common area.

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The furnished façade. The dense boundary

We aim to mitigate the indifference in the orientation of the homes that the volume determined by the Partial Plan makes inevitable. To achieve this, we propose constructing a serial “furniture” that is identical for the different types of openings in the homes. This “furniture” serves three functions: to provide shading adaptable to any orientation, thus increasing comfort and energy savings; to camouflage the inevitable air conditioning units that would otherwise populate the façade, impoverishing the urban landscape; and finally, to allow for “dressing” the street, similar to how baroque balconies and shutters in many Andalusian cities adorn their facades, creating more expressive formal relationships with public space and smaller-scale features that foster recognition and identification of citizens with the development.

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Ground floor. The meeting with the public space

We could agree that the point where the “tower” connects with the ground is a critical moment, as it represents the meeting point between public and private spaces. Therefore, we assume that the building’s ground floor transforms in response to the pressures of the ground and public space. The access level is a modified version of the floor plan, where a transverse cut allows entry and connection with the common outdoor space located to the north. We imagine this as a community gathering place, a space for children to play, and a resting area for the elderly. This cut reconfigures the floor plan while maintaining the installation cross, which is removed in the access areas to facilitate movement. When approaching the entrance, we will see the light from the outdoor space beyond the building’s lobby, avoiding claustrophobic dead-end sensations and suggesting a meeting space. The lobby extends toward the avenue, with a ramp that overcomes the level difference, enhancing the privacy of the ground-floor homes. This ramp breaks the solidity of the cube with a gesture of offering, like a carpet, reconciling private space with the geometry of the public street.

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