It is a paradox that when Marta Peris and José Toral design social housing they manage to make it not look social. Because? Because they not only dignify them, they transform and improve them. They turn them into life machines, in the most pleasant, conscious and unprejudiced way of squeezing square meters and euros by making a home. This is what the RIBA, Royal Institute of British Architects, saw when it awarded its 85 homes in Cornellá de Llobregat its international award.
If modernity opted to clean up the ornamentation and produce mass-produced homes, Peris & Toral choose to progress the home by changing materials and design. This building, with six floors and 85 homes, is the largest wooden structure built in Spain.
Affordable and sustainable—because the wooden structure reduces CO₂ emissions and the modular system shortens construction times—the building is inspired by… cinema. Yasujiro Ozu’s films address family crises and intergenerational relationships. Ozu is Japanese. And the traditional Japanese home is based on a module, that of the 3.6×3.6 meter tatami. “This modulation breaks the usual hierarchy in most homes. And with this fracture many of the intergenerational problems disappear,” the architects say.
Thus, nothing that happens inside this building is new. You enter through the terrace (as in the corralas), and the kitchen—open (American kitchen)—occupies the heart of the home. There is no hallway. No square meters are wasted and all bedrooms and rooms have the same meters. There is an exciting documentary in which architects visit tenants once they have settled in their flats. Each home is different. Everyone has changed the house and everyone has also changed with the house.
Everyone considers that the homes adapt to their way of life. All? How can it be? Because they are flexible. Modules make changes easy. All rooms have cross ventilation between the central, communal patio and the façade. In this work, a Peris&Toral classic, the Barcelona blinds provide shade and privacy.
As the president of Riba highlighted when announcing the award, the change that Peris&Toral has built is neither ornamental nor circumstantial. It is transformative. Indicates a path to follow.