One accedes across narrow and sinuous streets, almost rambling … And immediately this building, bigger than others, surprise you…a building of thick walls and large overtures, ” of gentlemen ” according to the people of Llançà. Having the judicial judgment of technical ruin, the easiest thing was to demolish the building but after several conversations with the promoter, we decided to choose the most difficult way …we decided to preserve the singular building and try to give it back all its personality and its history.
The project proposes the reform and the integral rehabilitation of the existing building. The three fronts of the building are kept, his overtures and its ornamental typical elements. Also, the interior structures were preserved. The whole interior of the building is emptied, from the roofs to the foundations. There is formed a metallic girders that join the structure of the walls. The forging is based on metallic girders and collaborating metal sheet. Only the vaulting of the ceiling is kept in ground floor. The stairs are replaced in the middle of the building, adapting it to the new technical requirements and creating a well of light to the heart of the building. There are created 6 housings, 2 business premises and 6 parking lots. There are three housings in the ground floor and three in the second one, arranged longitudinally in each facade. The three top housings incorporate an extra floor under the roof, which already existed, but now, each apartment has an interior scale to it, and this new configuration offers a new vision across the double space created.
The conception of the housings wants to be like a dispute between the weight of the history of the walls and the new and fresh interior. The space that defines these interiors is a broad and diaphanous plan that joins from one side of the house to the other. It is marked by a change of pavement and a different height of the ceiling. It is the bone that joins all the spaces of the house: bedrooms, baths and an interior scale that comes to the kitchen and to the living room. The Simplicity of forms, of the materials and of the colors is looking for a harmonious dialog between the new things and the old things. When today the steps fall apart in the labyrinth of streets of the old Llançà, this building still surprises between others.
COAUTHOR: Josep Carreté.
