44 Social Housing Units in Teruel

Memory of project by Cristina Argos and María Loriente

Situation
The building is located in the new urban fabric and is defined as an isolated building in the planning, surrounded by open free spaces on the northeast and the southwest.

Program
The building includes 44 Social Housing Units, 44 storage rooms, 65 parking spaces and shops. Parking and storage rooms are in the basement, on the ground floor are the entrance halls and commercial premises. Housing units and private spaces are situated on floors 1-4.

The organization responds to the relationship of the building with the environment in different directions, closing to the north and opening to the south.

The building depth allows a housing type with two orientations that allow cross-ventilation and natural lighting on all interior spaces. Three housing types with the same program, living-dining room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms, allow greater flexibility in distribution.

All units have a private terrace facing south linked to the living areas, that connect the indoor and outdoor spaces with public space.

Vertical communications are located in 5 hallways on the north facade. Access to the hallways takes place from Plaza de la Cultura through a porch that supports the private terraces on the first floor.

On two different levels, there is a space for the private use of the dwellings on the first floor and another that promotes the relationship between the building and the urban environment and landscape.

Bioclimatic design. Energy Performance Certificate
The building's design focuses on the use of passive systems to improve thermal and acoustic comfort.

A ceramic ventilated facade made of extruded ceramic plates "Bersal 250" 16mm thick from FAVETON, perforated concrete brick, with outer mineral wool insulation, avoiding any thermal bridge.

The terraces provide passive protection against excessive sunlight in summer. The dual orientation of the units allows cross ventilation optimizing natural ventilation. Window frames are made of RPT aluminum and windows have low emissive glass on north orientations, and "microventilated" systems.

A system for central heating, Biomass boiler and fuel tank is located in the basement. Underfloor heating, innovative system that improves the thermal comfort and helps save energy. The floating floor that is part of the system consists of a continuous bed of insulating material, which drastically reduces the transmission of noise, which helps to improve the acoustic quality of the building.

The buildings achieves the Energetic Performance Certificate through its bioclimatic design and passive systems linked to improvements in generation systems involving significant reductions in CO2 emissions.