The building is strategically designed to maximise solar gain in winter and reduce cooling demand in summer, incorporating cross ventilation, solar shading, and high thermal inertia in floors and walls with humidity-regulating hygroscopy and breathability. The ‘Trombe’ type roof is a key element that captures heat in winter and is ventilated in summer, regulating the temperature and thus eliminating active systems. The private patios function as user control and filtering elements for the ventilation of the dwellings.

With near-zero energy consumption (1.7 kWh/m²-year, NZEB), the project reduces CO₂ emissions by 50%, while circularity considerations mean a waste reduction of 60%. In addition, the project has been consciously designed with building systems where materials can be separated for reuse in the event of demolition. The Life Cycle Analysis demonstrates a low CO2 cost in construction (230 Kg Co2/m2), a 50% reduction compared to conventional constructions.

The result is a housing complex that reduces its environmental impact while strengthening the local economy and promoting territorial regeneration. By incorporating vernacular materials and techniques, Ses Veles Puigpunyent proposes an architecture in dialogue with the island’s culture, combining technical innovation and environmental responsibility.

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The modules’ flexibility and multiple connections enable the house to function as a single open space or separate areas. The staggered layout enhances visual relationships in all directions, creating a sense of spaciousness and a strong connection to the garden. At the heart of the house, the central module rises above the rest to increase solar gain in winter and improve cross-ventilation in summer.

The construction is simple, with load-bearing brick walls, concrete flooring, and vaulted ceilings. Our goal was to create a building with high thermal mass, which, combined with ample solar gain in winter and effective ventilation in summer, ensures optimal thermal comfort throughout the year.

The house is connected to the garden through planted pergolas that mirror the structural grid, forming outdoor spaces that act as climatic shelters and encourage interaction with the surrounding natural environment.

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The plot, located in a suburban neighborhood, has a rectangular area of 923.34 m2 bordered on the north-east by industrial buildings, on the northwest by Anselm Clavé street and on the south-east and south-west by green spaces and communal areas of a neighboring apartment building. The ground floor defines an interior passage that communicates the street and the park providing connectivity and integration between the two urban areas all the while dividing the space into two enclosed spaces for commercial and public use. Its shape follows the nature of its surroundings for better integration and its hard-based finishes facilitate accessibility and maintenance. In turn, the façades are defined by balconies that occupy the maximum surface allowed by local regulations, which limit their presence to the 50% of the façade.

By strictly following a fan-like shape, the project extends the exterior surface of the apartments to the maximum allowed, defining large outdoor spaces.

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Bar nou offers on its menu Pa amb tomaquet (bread with tomatoes), a typical catalan dish presented in a contemporary manner. According to this, one of the demands of the clients consisted in combining contemporary design with traditional approaches. Since its importance is capital for the bar’s identi- ty, a dj-booth looking altar devoted to its preparation has been designed and placed at the core of the space. There chefs play, as if they were the new dj’s, their role of pamtomaquers under a brand new vaulted scenography.

Besides the space, the project has also developed the design of the interior elements including furni- ture and lights. Both the chairs and tables introduce common materials in domestic tradition, such as cattail or mirrors. With regard to lighting, three complementary typologies have been designed. With urban scale in mind, the project uses figurative neon lights to emphasize its presence in a busy and crowded crossroad. Meanwhile, the interior suspended lamps consist of a pivoting metal tube arm that allows them to adapt to the changing position of the tables and in turn draws from outside a constel- lation of points in permanent modification. Additionally, three legged lamps provide a domestic and atmospherical light.

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To the north, the construction is compact with thick load-bearing walls where the mass predominates over the openings. In the southern interior patio, there is a porticoed structure providing access to the apartments. The proposal adopts the necessary measures, both in its construction and use, to achieve the 100% reduction in emissions required by Law 7/2021 on climate change and energy transition for future constructions to be carried out from 2050 onwards.

All the apartments are oriented following the direction of the Esporles torrent, which marks the prevailing winds that cross the Sierra de Tramontana. The north facade is dissipative and energy-conserving through a double wall of thermal clay. The south facade is a collector and works with inertia and the glazed gallery. With the proper functioning of the bioclimatic elements, the demand for heating and cooling for the building as a whole is null. Active climate control systems are not required due to the high interior inertia of the apartments, achieving temperature differences of up to 20 degrees between the interior and exterior of the apartment in winter.

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The ground floor features continuous light-colored microcement flooring to maximize the reflection of natural light. This level houses the day-to-day living spaces, including the living room, kitchen, dining area, guest bathroom, and laundry room.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the original building is the historical traces of past constructions, particularly a unique pair of overlapping arches. The design strategy was to preserve and highlight these unique features, as well as the original beams and as many other original elements as possible, presenting them in a raw, unembellished state.

Some walls had to be reinforced due to the crumbling sandstone they were made from, but overall, the goal was to retain the character of the valuable original elements wherever possible.

To contrast with the rawness of the original space, oak wood was used for the new architectural elements. This wooden intervention is reversible, clearly identifiable against the original structure, and creates a softer contrast with the otherwise stark environment. The ambiance of the residence was further enhanced with curtains, textiles, plants, and indirect lighting.

In summary, the interior landscape emerges from a deliberate contrast rather than from a generalized neutral comfort. Working with contrasts can be riskier, but when executed with balance, it creates a more exciting result.

This project inevitably draws parallels with the renovation of Can Oliver into the Nobis Hotel, as both involve historical traces and were developed concurrently. At the Nobis Hotel, we used black steel instead of wood to integrate the new program, aiming for an even more extreme contrast between the architecture (which is essential, heavy, powerful, and somewhat rough) and the work of the interior designers, who employed lighter textile elements.

In both buildings, the strategy was akin to surfing, where the approach is more about harnessing existing energies than imposing predefined paths, with contrast serving as the guiding principle.

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The project on the new accesses to the building proposes a set of volumes which include both the new spaces destined to the hall and the main new accesses to the exhibition floors of the museum. The new volumes, placed in front of the old partitioning wall of the church, are arranged in a way that allows the conformation of the new façade of the building but at the same time grant the sights to the most important footprints of the old church that remains on the partitioning wall.

The intervention in the new accesses of the building pretends to be more than just a solution for the west façade of the old Jesuit college: the intervention proposes a new way of grasping both the building and its urban surroundings. The new accesses of the museum create a pathway which allows to admire the sights to the key elements of the old college (the cloister, the barrel vaults or the footprints onto the partitioning wall), sights over the adjacent urban spaces (Sant Ignasi’s Square and the urban orography of an old creek) and, finally, sights to the significant elements of the urban and landscape heritage of the city (the gothic basilica of La Seu, the defense tower of Santa Caterina or the mountain of Montserrat). The path created by the new accesses culminates, at its highest point, in a bleacher that overlooks the urban landscape.

The project, in short, aims to re-mean both the site of the intervention and the building itself by re-establishing links with the past of the Jesuit complex and with the city.

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The floor plan consists of six and eight homes in the respective parts, arranged around a walkway. This walkway is separated from the façades in the central stretch, generating a distance of privacy and empty space through which light and air flow to guarantee cross ventilation of the homes. The rest of the housing types have through ventilation, with dual orientation and views.

The structure shapes the space by means of load-bearing walls that fold in the shape of a meander to create bracing walls. This arrangement allows the diagonal connection of the interior space of the homes. The typology makes no distinction between day and night areas, situating the two rooms at opposite ends of the floor plan and connecting them by a through living room that looks outwards through two intermediate spaces: a heat collection terrace in the form of a wintergarden that makes for a building without active systems, and a wooden lattice gate to offer privacy at the entrance. Instead of opaque doors that separate and isolate, entrances boxes connect the homes with their intermediate spaces, protecting inhabitants’ privacy with wooden lattices. The system of frames opens out to create an outdoor room where the change of flooring indicates the limit of the private. The aim is to strike a balance between privacy and sharing. The walkways leading to the homes are elevated streets, promoting social interaction and community among the inhabitants.

The location in the building of the two communication shafts generates double circulation loops, extended by the presence of additional stairs at the ends of the walkways that take advantage of the fretwork-shape of the structure. This encourages a wide range of possible routes that converge in the courtyards.
The load-bearing walls are built of ceramic pieces fired with biomass from local industry, H20-type hollow bricks. As the apparent density of this material is low, it was decided to lay the bricks with the holes vertically to fill them with sand, thereby increasing their mass and inertia. This solution resolves acoustics between neighbours with a single skin. To seal the joints thoroughly and ensure the wall’s hygrothermal performance, it has a projected lime mortar plaster coat on both sides with a minimum thickness of 15 mm.

The white-concrete floor slabs are lightened, revealing the in-situ one-way ribs. The formwork is reused as a base for the sloping roof structure.

The walkways are finished with 10-cm cork ETICS clad with lime plaster.

The façade comprises self-supporting limestone, 10 cm thick, which is increased to 20 cm to form the openings and jack arches, and 40 cm in the walls. Two types of stone are used, a harder, heavier and more resistant white stone in the areas of contact with the ground, and a less dense one in the upper parts.

Local sandstone is used for the ashlars and in its amorphous version, lime, since both materials come from the same source, marès. Lime is used in the form of powder or paste in mortars and plasters, offering great benefits for comfort such as hygroscopicity, insulation and protection of surfaces, and providing antibacterial and fungicidal properties for a healthy indoor environment.

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Adjacent to this public area appears the private pillbox, composed of two twin and symmetrical bedrooms, one facing the main façade and the other facing the interior patio.

Unlike the neutral and white public space, each of the bedrooms is completely bathed in a color chosen by its inhabitants.

Between both spaces, public and private, an elongated and narrow tablet is proposed that acts as a filter and houses the wet areas of the house.

As if it were a ritual, this humid ‘cloud’ is crossed to move from the most private spectrum to the public area.

This ‘cloud’ is elevated with respect to the ground level of the home to allow the passage of the facilities to the main downspout, but also to reinforce the transition from the public space, open and white, with a free height of 3 meters, to the private space. , colored and collected.

Two large curved doors give way to these rooms. All the interior surfaces of this ‘filter space’ are finished in glass mosaic of 2.5 x 2.5 cm pieces installed on the curved walls using preformed meshes, and on the floor in a handmade way, piece by piece aligned with the curve as it meets the walls in concentric circles.

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