Mgm Morales De Giles Architect – Renovation of 5 Dwelling in the Populo Distruct, Cadiz

PROJECT: Mgm Morales De Giles Architect – Renovation of 5 Dwelling in the Populo Distruct, Cadiz

LOCATION: Fray Félix St, 3. Cádiz. Spain

YEAR: 2007

ARCHITECT / FIRM: MGM MORALES DE GILES ARCHITECT. (José Morales, Sara de Giles).

BUYER: EPSA Junta de Andalucía. Oficina de Rehabilitación del casco Histórico de Cádiz

SURFACE: 776 sqm

PRICE: € 356.276,00

DESCRIPTION:
This is an operation on an old palace/home clogged up by eleven families who are seeking a space of their own amongst the old walls of the traditional Pópulo district in Cádiz. The project aims to rehouse the residents in a dignified way on the same property, dignifying their lives without losing sight of the historic memory. We will inject modern technical advances and provide the necessary ventilation and lighting to create previously non-existent inhabitable spaces, ot falling into the trap of standardizing and rationalizing spaces but instead, learning from chance and arbitrariness in order to enrich the particularity of each one. The formal complexity and the starting conditions for this project, with its focus on the need to preserve the historic values of the building, has led us to an operation in which four types of operation are intermingled: the renovation and consolidation of the 18th century walls (ground and first floor), the restructuring of the courtyards without alterations, as required by the bylaws, the replacement of the construction (second floor), and upward extension (setback attic). By this means there is a labour of consolidation on the ground and first floors, above which a new type of architecture emerges to complete the project and consolidate the morphology of the building. The need to maintain the same building area and not change the current height of the frontage led us to design a project with space for five dignified dwellings and a shop for the district’s neighborhood association on the ground floor. One of the key aims to revive the street character formerly embodied by the kink in the allotment, which is connected to a small square beside the new cathedral. This is a private lane, partially covered and two floors high, ventilated and illuminated through two courtyards and a gap on the facade. This will permit the opening of windows onto the street and the actual creation of an interior urban landscape. With this operation, we will recover the rectangular ground plan that this building had in the 18th century, while at the same time maintaining the pristine nature of the frontage wall from the old period, set alongside the small square. Ultimately, the project strives to guide people along a tangential route into what this property once was at the time of its greatest splendor (18th century). For this purpose, we carve into what used to be the street, and in this operation, what appears is a series of apertures open to the sky and the city space, which will guarantee the spatial and architectural quality of the complex. This sculptural operation links up with the vertical space of the main courtyard, which emerges above the roof with the newly built attics. Three personalities gazing at the cathedral and the Mediterranean Sea. In the Pópulo House, the void is twisted and solidified thanks to the moulding space which shapes the new interior lane of these puzzle-houses.

DESCRIPTION:
Commisioned by the Office of Rehabilitation of the historic town of Cadiz, the project is carried out in an old mansion clogged with 11 families who seek their space between the old walls of the popular neighbourghood of Pópulo in Cádiz. In addition to concerns about the relocation of the maximum number of tenants, the reuse of the historic structures allows us to propose a drastic change in the housing programs, changing the concept of m2. Instead of working with surfaces, we will work with volumes. They are two very different architectural concepts: surface or volume. The first one heaps the population into some standard linked to the concept of minimum housing, social or protected, according to the parameters used, and the second is connected with the concept of space. The first is linked to the “planning”, then to the typology and always to rationality and the monetary profitability of the operation. The second extends from the life of the residents, from their own bodies, with radically different economic concept. In this way, the objective is to relocate the existing tenants in the same building and dignify their living conditions, without losing sights of the historic memory.

DESCRIPTION:
EPSA Junta de Andalucía. Oficina de Rehabilitación del casco Histórico de Cádiz

- SURFACE present NO VARIATION,

TOTAL CONSERVATION / CONTINUITY: The overall dimensions are equal to the pre-existing surface.

- VOLUME present NO VARIATION,

TOTAL CONSERVATION / CONTINUITY: The overall dimensions are equal to the pre-existing volume.

DESCRIPTION:
The need to maintain the same built surface area and not to modify the height of the current façade of the building has led to the development of a project that makes room for five apartments and a locale for the tenants’ association of the barrio on the ground floor. Another of the main objectives was to recoup the character of the street that the arm of the plot that connects up with the small square next to the new cathedral formerly possessed; this will be a private street, with two floors above, partially roofed, ventilated and illuminated via two patios and an opening on the facade. This will enable windows to be opened onto this new street and an interior urban landscape to be really created. With this operation we recoup the rectangular floor plan the house had in its period of greatest splendor in the 18th century. The purity is also retained of the ancient facade wall situated next to this little square, while the remains of the 17th century and the walls of greater age are consolidated and rehabilitated.

DESCRIPTION:
The formal complexity and the starting conditions for this project, with its focus on the need to preserve the historic values of the building, has led us to an operation in which four types of operation are intermingled: the renovation and consolidation of the 18th century walls (ground and first floor), the restructuring of the courtyards without alterations, as required by the bylaws, the replacement of the construction (second floor), and upward extension (setback attic). By this means there is a labour of consolidation on the ground and first floors, above which a new type of architecture emerges to complete the project and consolidate the morphology of the building.

DESCRIPTION:
The formal complexity and the starting conditions for this project, with its focus on the need to preserve the historic values of the building, has led us to an operation in which four types of operation are intermingled: the renovation and consolidation of the 18th century walls (ground and first floor), the restructuring of the courtyards without alterations, as required by the bylaws, the replacement of the construction (second floor), and upward extension (setback attic). By this means there is a labor of consolidation on the ground and first floors, above which a new type of architecture emerges to complete the project and consolidate the morphology of the building. The first two floors of the building conserved in the project are working through load bearing walls, founded over engraved stones and stoned-columns over a slab of oyster stone. We propose to build the new walls over the old ones, and in the perimeter, new walls are constructed to stand the concrete labs, in order to maintain the old structure and foundations.

DESCRIPTION:
Another added responsibility for the project was to return to the families their same way of understanding the habitat, i.e. the same intense relationship between private and collective spaces that so characterized the previous state of the building. The idea is to equip the dwellings with the dwellings with technical advances of contemporary life and provide the necessary ventilation and light to the living spaces, with a nod of our epoch, without falling into the trap of standardizing the spaces. Learning from the casual and arbitrary in order to enrich the particularities of each one.

DESCRIPTION:
One of the key aims to revive the street character formerly embodied by the kink in the allotment, which is connected to a small square beside the new cathedral. This is a private lane, partially covered and two floors high, ventilated and illuminated through two courtyards and a gap on the facade. This will permit the opening of windows onto the street and the actual creation of an interior urban landscape. With this operation, we will recover the rectangular ground plan that this building had in the 18th century, while at the same time maintaining the pristine nature of the frontage wall from the old period, set alongside the small square. Ultimately, the project strives to guide people along a tangential route into what this property once was at the time of its greatest splendor (18th century). For this purpose, we carve into what used to be the street, and in this operation, what appears is a series of apertures open to the sky and the city space, which will guarantee the spatial and architectural quality of the complex. This sculptural operation links up with the vertical space of the main courtyard, which emerges above the roof with the newly built attics. Three personalities gazing at the cathedral and the Mediterranean Sea. In the Pópulo House, the void is twisted and solidified thanks to the molding space which shapes the new interior lane of these puzzle-houses.