The Drawings shown in this Plan Analysis Portfolio are original work based on the limited images and project information found on the Architects website and online Architecture Magazines. This information is included in the appendix at the end of the report.
Authors
Hietbrink, Cedric
Kerekes, Bálint
Raimundo De Carvalho, Marta
Savonije, Jelte
AR1AD014
Fundamentals of Housing Design
AR1A080
Building Engineering Studios
Delft University of Technology Department of Architecture
Data and project description
Analytical drawings
DATA AND PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Project name
Architect
Design/construction year
Location/address
19 Viviendas Sociale
Ripoll Tizon
2008/2012
Carrer Mercat 92. Sa Pobla, Mallorca, Spain 2.17 0.70
166
Dwelling types/amount
Amenities
Social housing/19 units
Parking garage
In this paper we will be analyzing ‘Sa Pobla Social Housing’, a 19 dwelling project located north in the Island of Mallorca, by the Palma based Architecture Studio, Ripoll Tizón. This studio has contributed in many social housing initiatives, in both the islands and continental Spain, always carefully considering the culture in which their design will be inserted. This way making sure that the historical architecture value of the area is preserved.
Cultural preservation is something that is very strong in this project. Sa Pobla is a small town between the Tramontana mountain range, the Pla and Alcúdia bay, with its land divided into 3 areas: Fertile Agricultural fields, Albufeira landscape with high ecological value and Lower Mountain Lands, where this project is inserted. Over the years this specific area has made transformations to generate commercia/industrial value and boost touristic revenue. This would mean that area would embrace changes in its traditional architecture. Unfortunately many of this changes were poorly executed influencing Sa Pobla to loose a fragment of its Cultural Architectural
Value. Having this into consideration Ripoll Tizón made the decision to design a Social Housing Apartment Building that would not only fulfil the housing needs of people in the area but also pay respect to traditional architecture. With this mix of modern / Simplistic design and cultural inspired design, the architects were able to preserve a little bit of Sa Pobla, taking clear references from nearby elements, like its climate people and life-style.
It can also be discussed how this project plays an interesting game between minimalism and complexity at the same time. Something that becomes even more clear when analyzing the complexity of its building configuration and the simplicity of its building elements. W
Lastly, something else that also makes this project stand out, is its climate responsive design trough almost fully passive methods.
Through this analysis we will perform an analytical decomposition of the building, to discover exactly how this aspects of urban integration, building configuration, complex while functional organization of dwellings, building technologies and climate responsive design, are introduced in this specific project making it an unique and inspired design.
URBAN SITUATION
AVERAGE DAY AND NIGHT TEMPERATURE
The mean minimum and maximum temperatures over the year.
MONTHLY HOURS OF SUNSHINE
The average monthly total hours of sunshine over the year
AVERAGE WATER TEMPERATURE
The mean water temperature over the year.
MONTHLY PRECIPITATION
AVERAGE HUMIDITY
The mean monthly relative humidity over the year
MONTHLY RAINY DAYS
The mean minimum and maximum temperatures over the year. The average number of days each month with rain, snow, hail etc.
June 21 73.5°
Dec 21 26.8°
Shades partially
Shades half of the day
Shades all day
SHADES PARTIALLY SHADES HALF OF THE DAY SHADES ALL DAY
BUILDING CONFIGURATION
Basement plan
Site response
Ground floor plan
Access system
First floor plan
Structural system
Second floor plan
Public/Private/Collective realm
Roof plan
Service distribution system
Nort elvation
Outlines of the building site
The site is divided with a grid of six-by-six meters. The corridors and elevator shafts have a different width of three meters.
The six-by-six meters grid is divided by a secondary grid of three-by-three meters.
The dwellings are placed on this grid.
The access of the building is on the streetside. On the ground floor the courtyard is used as circulation area. The building has two lifts with stairs next to them. The lift closes to the entrée goes up one floor and is
connected with the apartments by a gallery. The other lift goes up two floors and is also connected to the apartments by a gallery.
The main structure is done with concrete columns and reinforced concrete floors. The floors have a maximum span of six meters. The structure is stabilized by block infills. The diagram shows the different floors and the
main structural elements. It also shows a fragment of the structure. In here in brown the block infills are shown.
The ground floor has the most collective space. This exist of a courtyard right in the
of the building block. On the first and second floor corridors are used as collective space. Most of the apartments
have their own private outside space. This differs from small gardens, terraces, and loggias. Because of the small width of the building there is only a small part of the building connected with the public space.
middle
The diagram shows the chimneys in the building. They chimneys are used to ventilate the dwellings. In every dwelling there are several funnels. The kitchens and bathrooms are located next to these chimneys. Different
dwellings use the same chimney. Because there are many chimneys there is almost no need for vertical air ducts.
THIRD VIEW
SECOND VIEW
FIRST VIEW
residential buildings are a typical design choice in Spanish Architecture, and here we can see special efforts were applied to introduce this as a main component of the building.
just by deciding where 3 different sized openings will be. Also looking at how different the patterns become depending on how far away they are form user perception. It helped us understand that clear rules are followed in the elevation design.
opening position to its dwellings and of course the creation of an exterior balanced aesthetics.
The Environmental Strategy in these project relies fully in passive methods, like its deeply complex natural ventilation system. Wich can be created by applying a series of design decision that influence greatly the Air flow within the complex. But the most important Passive strategy applyed is STACK VENTILATION which operates with some simple principles based on the pressure differential between hot and cold air and the circulation in the whole system.
AIR CIRCULATION AND PASSIVE VENTILATION SYSTEM
STRATEGIC BALCONIES EXTERIOR CIRCULATION
Strategic Balconies that completly cross the building allow wind to come into the courtyard, they help to fully ventilate the houses turned to the interior of the complex. Making the Colective Circulation and the Access to all houses exterior, means that there are no barriers stoping wind to flow freely and easely cooling down this areas.
COURTYARD VENTILATION
For centuries, interior courtyards have been created to aid the purpose of natural ventilation and day lighting. It is highly efficient to have a courtyard because courtyard ventilation also has a passive cooling effects during the night which bring the overall temperature down.
SINGLE SIDE VENTILATION
Rooms inside the houses provide single sided ventilation. Commonly single sided ventilation is used in Temperate Climates, like Sa Pobla, to provide healthy and comfortable indoor environments.
CHIMNEYS WITH PERFORATED BRICK
All houses have a ventilation Chimney connection with spetial perforated bricks, that naturally provides air flow inside the houses through Stack Ventilation.
DESIGNING FOR THE SHADOWS
In the specific climate of Sa Pobla controlling Heat gain inside the building is very important to create a comfortable and fresh environment. This is applied in Sa Pobla Social Housing by designing for the Shadows rather then for the light. In these cases the architects need to compromise between a space that has extra good levels of natural light and a space that provides a reasonable room temperature spetially in extra hot summer days. In these specific project we can see that there was a clear concern in creating stretegic shadows in outdoor colective and private spaces. This can be a very practical way of controlling heat gain in a passve way.
SUMER SOLISTICE AFTERNOON 21 JUNE
WINTER SOLISTICE AFTERNOON 21 December
SUMER SOLISTICE MORNING 21 JUNE SOLAR ELEVATION 53.43 °
WINTER SOLISTICE MORNING 21 December SOLAR ELEVATION 23.26 °
KITCHEN LIVING ROOM
BEDROOM
BEDROOM
BEDROOM
DWELLINGS
MAISONETTE I
MAISONETTE II
MAISONETTE III
FLAT I
FLAT II
PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION
PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION
PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION
PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION
PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION
PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION
LIVING + DINING
BEDROOM
CIRCULATION
CIRCULATION
PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION
PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION
PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION
PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION
KITCHEN
BATHROOM
BATHROOM
BEDROOM
TERRACE LOCATIONS
SINGLE ASPECT
This type of balcony is characterised by it being surrounded by three walls and one open side. This creates a front- and back side.
DUAL ASPECT
Being wedged inbetween dwellings, it has two open sides. To create privacy, a space filled with gravel is used to create distance to the edge
TRIPLE ASPECT
Two of these balconies can be found, which have fewer privacy due to only having one wall next to it. These are therefore surrounded by gravel on three sides
MATERIALISATION
In the axonometric section on the right a typical junction between wall and floor can be seen, also showing the different types of walls that occur in the structure, being either concrete slab of concrete columns with poroton bricks. The walls furthermore show a layer of EPS sandwich panels insulating the dwelling from the outside. All walls, both exterior and interior are finished with mooth cast white plaster, resulting in a very uniform look throughout the stsructure. By combining the porotone brick, which have good insulating properties, with a layer of insulation, the dwellings are expected to have a pleasant and stabile climate.
Natural Stone
Timber Board
Smooth Cast
Plaster Finish
Double Glazing
PVC frame with double glass and reflective foil
Balcony floor
In-situ concrete junction
EPS sandwich panels on exterior walls
Sliding shutters on ground floor
We have decided to take special attention at the shutter system used in the building because they represent a big part of this project’s identity.Aesthetically speaking this is the feature that makes the building memorable to the Sa Pobla Resident. But after a deep study of its structure, we could conclude that the design of this specific windows and shutters have much more than just aesthetic in mind. The compact shutter is composed by two components, 1 solid treated timber board (that is exposed to the exterior when the window is closed) and one white painted Steel Frame (that is exposed when the window is open). Just these two components are responsible both for allowing the building to adopt a series of different interesting patterns, depending on how many windows are open or closed, and for controlling sun light inside the dwellings and consequently users can avoid unpleasant heat gain inside just by having them completely closed or 90º open.
The Glass used on the Window although it appears to be a simple double-Glazing system it also appears to have an additional reflective coating, used to prevent the users privacy seeing that some dwellings can have a close relationship with the street and others with the interior courtyard inside the complex building.
Treated Compact Timber Board
White
Painted Steel Frame
PVC Window Frame
Double Glazing with Reflective Coatinng
Single Hung Outdoor
Sliding
SINGLE DOOR
DOUBLE WINDOW
SINGLE WINDOW
Single Hung Indoors
Tilt and Turn
LIFE CYCLE DURATION
• Exterior lighting
• House number signs
• Kitchen
• Ventilation ducts
• Wooden shutters
• Intercom
• Gate to underground car parking
• Elevators Services 7-15 years
• Double glazed windows
• EPS insulation
• Wooden doors
• Plaster
• Gravel
• Concrete window- or door ledge
>20 years
• Stairs
• Floor tiles
• Wooden details
• Railings
• Concrete walkways
• Courtyard tree
• Reinforced concrete
• Red clay hollow bricks
• Concrete blocks
• Cement
years
• Red dirt & rock soil
• Little to no vegetation
• Little rainfall
How the materials perform during their lifetime is one of the key considerations in the design phase of a project. For this project, low cost for both construction and maintenance are required due to its future function as being a social housing complex for the foreseable future. Due to this requirement the architects have decided on concrete, red clay hollow bricks and concrete blocks for the structure, creating a very solid base on which the 19 dwellings can create their own space.
A similar approach was taken for the space plan, using natural stone tiles, metal railings and concrete walkways as the main elements. The skin consists of a limited amount of different materials, mostly being EPS insulation, double glaze windows, plaster and wooden doors and shutters. Services and “stuff” include more detailed elements of the design, such as exterior lichting, ventilation ducts, an intercom and the elevators. These elements require regular maintenance te ensure they are running as they are meant ot.
To conclude, the materials and elements chosen for this project ensure a mostly maintenance free life cycle for a building that is meant to last
The Sa Pobla social housing project is designed in a mostly traditional manor, showing little thoughts on any of the R - strategies. The diagram below however shows how different elements might contribute to creating a project that uses certain R-strategies, eventhough they weren’t implemented for this reason.
The main elements that attribute to the circular thinking of the building are the minimalistic design and the decision to use red clay hollow bricks (poroton bricks). The minimalistic design, which is derived from a defined set of design rules, limits the amount of different elements, thereby limiting the amount of different transportation movements necessary for the project.
MINIMALISTIC DESIGN
DEFINED DESIGN RULES
MATERIALS
MATERIALS
The poroton bricks have several advantages, their production emits far less CO2 than regular bricks or concrete, they have great thermal- and sound insulating properties which limit the amount of additional materials necessary to create positive living conditions. They are furthermore relatively lightweight and therefore emit less carbon in transportation and are easy to handle on the construction site. The wood used in the window shutters and interior detailing attribute to not needing to use highly technical and climate negative materials such as aluminium of other rare metals.
MATERIAL ORIGINS
SILES CONSTRUCCIONES
Contractor
CO2 FOOTPRINT
Materials most used are: poroton bricks, concrete, glass
natural stone
Due to its small size, Mallorca is not likely to produce all necessary construction materials needed for a construction like the Sa Pobla social housing project. Whilst concrete has to be produced on the island, the raw materials for its construction and others such as bricks and glass are therefore probably shipped from mainland spain which do have the necessary production facilities.
Due to the design choice of using poroton bricks and a relatively small amount of insulation due to climate conditions on Mallorca, the CO2 equivilant is relatively low.
However, there are no materials in the construction or finishing of the project originating in the biological cycle, except for the wood used in either the facades or the interior detailing. Nearly all materials therefore have a certainamount of impact on climate change.
SA POBLA
MALLORCA
VALENCIA BARCELONA
RED HOLLOW CLAY BRICK
GLASS
NATURAL STONE
DESIGN FOR DISASSEMBLY / ADAPTIBILITY / LONGEVITY
The Sa Pobla social housing project is primarily designed to create pleasant and private residences in a high density configuration. To achieve this the architects have chosen to focus on assembling a number of architectural rules from which the final design is derived.
This has resulted in a sturdy configuration with relatively small units and specific breakthroughs in the floors. Whilst some changes are possible in the future, the options are quite limited due to the fragmented nature of the design.
• Little repetition and may quirks
• Services are not flexible
• Floor plans are difficult to alter
As with the floor plans, shafts for either ventilation or plumbing are located in such a manner that nearly all bathrooms and kitchens are located adjacent to such a shaft.
Combined with the fact that the ventilation of the dwellings is organised by air entering through air vents and being discarded through chimeys in the kitchen in a passive manner results in a very limited possibility to change the floorplans.
Increasing the density on the plot is also nearly impossible due to the shafts and air vents that could get blocked by an expansion.
STAKEHOLDERS`
The stakeholders for the project in Sa Pobla can be marked as being very traditional. There has been one party, who has its main focus on constructing and maintaining social housing in Mallorca, called Ibavi, which was the client for the project. There was one architecture firm who did the design process, which was mainly focussed on using the traditional building styles and blending in with the rest of the building block.
One element of the design could be appointed to taking part in the circular is the use of poroton bricks, which contain residual products from energy production plants of other industrial processes.
The design choices have resulted in a structure that is very dificult to reuse, mainly due to nearly all components being either put together by concrete, cement or plaster. The development process of this project can mostly be considered as being very non-circular.
• Traditional process
• Materials not demountable
• One type of re-use in construction
RIPOLLTIZON ARCHITECTS
REFLECTION ON FUNDAMENTALS
Climate responsive design
Repetition and variation
Type and typology
Access systems
Structure and Space
Scalarity
Private, Public and Collective realms
The human aspect
CLIMATE RESPONSIVE DESIGN
REPETITION AND VARIATION
TYPE AND TYPOLOGY
The analysis of the building design and a yearlong study on the climate in Sa Pobla help understand how this building is able to produce a responsive design for the temperate climate is integrated, while being fully dependent of passive environmental methods. Obtaining air flow within the complex was a crucial task due to the extremely dry and hot climate of Sa Pobla. The architects therefore created an complex air circulation strategy that is influenced greatly the design decision making of building components like strategic openings, external corridors and a semi-courtyard. Again, taking into consideration this specific hot climate, the whole building seems to be designed for the shadow, prioritizing shadowy spaces that together with the ventilation strategy will be able to create drafted comfortable environments in the hot summer days.
Even though this building at first sight might communicate an accidental symmetric look, after doing a deep analysis of both its elevations and dwelling configuration, it becomes clear that a series of rules are followed carefully, to ensure the balance of all the architectural elements. All the facades simply show the different openings available to each dwelling, with no extra ornamentation. We can conclude that the patterns created in all the facades, are just a repetition of 3 different types of openings that varied in size and typology. The same happens in the design of each dwelling, in this case variation of dwelling types are achieved by experimenting different combinations of the same standard rooms.
As mentioned before the largest element of this project can be seen as the individual dwellings. This is due to the fact that all dwellings are unique, but are designed by having standard sizes and shapes for rooms and using these to create functional and comfortable dwellings.
By the fact that the service systems are preferably positioned above each other, anchor points in the positioning of the different rooms around these shafts is given. Furthermore, the six by six meters grid gives clear guidelines on the dimensions possible for certain amounts of dwellings.
In this project, it has resulted in five distinct types of dwellings having either one or two bedrooms and some with a double height space and others without.
By using these guidelines an intricate variation of dwellings is produced that come together in a uniform way, where the largest elements, the dwellings, are build up by the smalles elements, the individual rooms.
ACCESS SYSTEMS
Circulation and access in this building are done mostly externally due to climate responsive factors. After studying how the different dwellings are placed and where their entries are, it is apparant that circulation can be quite different from user to user, an interesting approach to have in a small-scale residential building. A gated entry on the ground floor grants access to the courtyard, directly turned to main street (this is also where the vehicular access to the garage is). From this main entrance, depending on where their dwelling is located the users can either have a corridor access (houses on the Ground floor) or a gallery access (houses on the First Floor). The galleries are both connected by a seperate elevator that also reaches the parking garage.
STRUCTURE AND SPACE
SCALARITY
Structure is the element necessary to create space. In the social housing project in Sa Pobla, a defined set of design rules has been applied to form an intricate and functional balance between the two.
The load bearing structure, consisting mainly of concrete columns and slabs, has been placed on a six by six meter grid to allow for big spaces withing individual dwellings, extravagated by the double height spaces that haven been added to some of the dwellings. These big spaces have allowed the designers to create a series of unique dwellings, that at the same time allow little room for future adjustments due to the specific floor plans that have been created. Due to the decision of using a concrete structure insulation needed to be added to the exterior walls to ensure positive and stabile climate conditions inside the dwellings. In walls separating dwellings the decision to use red clay hollow bricks attributes to both thermal- and sound insulation, enabling them to not need any more thickness.
The chosen structure allows each individual dwelling their own space, within a larger scheme. It is however not very prone to allow any changes due to its rigid and solid structure, which might have been a conscious consideration of the architects.
The design rules as mentioned before are of great influence on the scalarity that this project portrays. By uniforming the design principles the architects have created a project from which almost any small scale detail could be seen as a typical section coming from nearly every spot in the project.
Within the plot, the largest element that can be found is the dwelling itself. These are linked mostly through two elements: the access structure and the service structure. The access structure is comprised of a courtyard, adjacent semi-open hallways, two elevators and stairs followed by two corridor/ gallery accesses. The dwellings are placed in such manner around this access structure to keep certain spaces cool whilst allowing air into other parts of the access structure.
Where the access structure mainly has influence on the horizontal layout of the dwellings, does the service structure heavily the vertical stacking of dwellings and the bathrooms and kitchens they house. Due to the surrounding buildings only having three to four levels the decision was made to only include a maximum of three levels in the project, resulting in relatively small shafts. This has then led to a relative high amount of shafts, without hampering the spaces of the dwelling.
PRIVATE/COLLECTIVE/PUBLIC REALMS
COMPLEXITY
As many plots in the city of Sa Pobla, the project houses a courtyard, along which the dwellings are located. This courtyard is separated from the public realm by gates for the cars and people that might enter the plot.
After going through this gate, the collective realm is entered, either by accessing the underground shared car parking or the courtyard from which all dwellings can be reached. This shared spaces has a purely functional and in some way clinical look and feel, not designed to stimulate inhabitants to claim the space for themselves, limiting the private spheres of the inhabitants to the dwellings themselves. A connection between the public and collective realm is however created by using the same type of pavement for the sidewalk as all collective walkways, connecting the front doors of the individual dwelling to the public street. Interaction between the inhabitants is mostly limited to seeing each other in the shared parking garage or the elevators and stair of the access structure the project has.
The private realm is designed as such, private outdoor spaces are seperated and due to the decision of placing the railings further inwards than necessary, views from courtyard to balcony are partly blocked. The design choices for lots of hard materials that require little maintenance attributes to the individuality of the dwellings, whilst still creating a high density.
Once the project is understood, the on first hand largely identical facades show a certain complexity which at the same time creates some sort of order. This quality fits between the scalarity of the whole and the repetition and variation that can be found throughout the project.
The complexity of this project lies in the minimalistic approach that is taken to come to a holistic design that doesn’t require extensive detailing to create spaces that work through different scales. These scales range from the technical scale to human scale and also urban scale.
Being common scales to work with in many different projects, these have been attributed to this project by the combination of traditional elements in modern looks, not standing out in the urban fabric but creating a personal experience for its users. Materials which are used in both exterior as well as interior spaces tie spaces together, while the pavement of the sidewalk in the urban fabric is used to connect it to the individual front doors, even though being separated by a gate.
By having the smallest type of element being the room and having the dwelling as the largest, the universal use of the same materials still results in dwellings with identities, linking the technical scale to the human scale.
