The architecture studio NUA architectures has planned the transformation of an old building into new tourist apartments in Salou, a municipality belonging to the Costa Dorada in the province of Tarragona, in the northeast of Spain.

The building was initially a home to which floors were added to convert it into a hotel with the city's tourist boom in the 1960s. It was later converted into a nursing home in the 2000s. Today, after 13 years of abandonment, it shows several signs of degradation.
The NUA architectures project seeks to give new life to the building as a tourist residence while preserving its structure. For this purpose, it is proposed as a large house, returning to the hotel-residence model of the early 20th century, where a temporary dialogue and an alternative life model to mass tourism is proposed and adapted to the Mediterranean climate and traditions, being a residence tourism suitable for any time of the year and not just summer.

At the program level, the building has common spaces on the ground floor and 6 types of housing, two on the ground floor and four on each of the other floors. All of them have spaces for cooking, eating, resting, and washing with good sunlight, double orientations, and cross ventilation.

Its construction is carried out with a single material, the traditional box, either with its natural finish or with a bottle green enameled finish that is used to contextualize the façade with the history of the place, following the modernist and noucentista construction tradition of the houses. summer in Salou.
 


Transformation of an abandoned building by NUA architectures. Photograph by Jose Hevia.

Project description by NUA architectures

Since the Iberians and Romans, the natural port of Salauris has been a strategic place on the Mediterranean coast from a military, commercial, and, finally, since the second half of the 20th century, tourist point of view.

Essentially a fishing town throughout history, Salou began to receive the first vacationers already in the 19th century thanks to the push of the new industrial bourgeoisie of Reus and the construction of the train, progressively transforming the fishing town into a small spa town. from health and wellness tourism. The construction of several modernist and noucentista houses on the seafront where rooms could be rented at the beginning of the 20th century is the testimony of these first vacationers in search of the therapeutic power of seawater.

For almost 50 years, Salou was growing slowly and timidly in the form of a garden city along its coastline thanks to the success of its spa. However, starting in the 1960s, Costa Dorada, and especially Salou, experienced unprecedented growth due to the tourist development of coastal cities, generating a heterogeneous urban landscape dominated by hotels apartment buildings, and restaurants that coexist with blocks of habitual homes and facilities, forming a mixed and heterogeneous urban context of isolated volumes.

The project orbits around one of these isolated buildings near the sea, initially conceived as a home built on a podium to which floors were added to house a hotel and, since the early 2000s, a nursing home. Dissatisfied with the planning and with volumetry and façade openings unaltered by regulations, the building presented, after 13 years of abandonment, severe signs of degradation and generated public order problems in its surroundings.


Transformation of an abandoned building by NUA architectures. Photograph by Jose Hevia.

Sixty years after the tourism boom in Salou, how should housing for temporary use be considered today and how does tourism have to respond to the social and environmental challenges that we are facing?

The project tries to give new life to the property through its rehabilitation and transformation. The reuse of its architecture before the demolition, the first project decision, presented obvious spatial limitations by having to preserve the existing wall structure and the low free height between slabs, but it allowed for conserving the buildability, adjusting the budget, and a great benefit. for the environment, reducing the carbon footprint of the intervention by avoiding the energy used in demolition, transportation of debris, and construction of new buildings, as well as the generation of waste.

The project is planned as a large house. It aims to escape from the mass tourism model to seek identity in the first vacationers and their hotel residences from the beginning of the 20th century at a conceptual and material level, proposing a temporal dialogue and an alternative life model to mass tourism: a slow, close model. and local, seasonally adjusted, adapted to the Mediterranean climate and rooted in the original architectural tradition of the place, born from spa tourism.

At the same time, as an alternative to the generic and global housing model oriented towards summer vacations and widespread since the 1960s, the new apartments want to be houses, warm, welcoming domestic spaces rooted in the local culture that can be occupied during all year.


Transformation of an abandoned building by NUA architectures. Photograph by Jose Hevia.

In this sense, strategically, it has been taken into account that both the building as a whole and the apartments can meet the regulatory conditions of habitability, so the complex could easily be converted into a permanent residential building at any time. The metamorphosis of the building is the result of a sum of accumulated interventions on the pre-existence, and is divided into four basic strategies:

Consolidate and reorganize.- The first project action aims to rethink the operation of the building and achieve a stable and safe primary structure. The precarious existing wall structure, walls, façade, and slabs have been preserved and reinforced, and the floors have been completely reorganized by adding a second staircase, which is added to an already existing one, and two elevators, forming a surrounding central core that organizes the flow of circulation and allows the housing units to be placed on the perimeter of the façade.

Order and relate.- To improve the habitability of the complex, it is proposed to improve the relationship of the building with the exterior. The existing attic, an uninhabitable space due to its low dimensions in height, has been eliminated, creating a new terrace on the covered floor. At the same time, the side facades have been rethought and organized by opening new windows, the essential ones that the regulations allowed, to achieve lighting and ventilation of all the homes and, in turn, achieve a more unitary urban image, maintaining the existing windows. , more organized, on the front facades. Finally, the existing body on the ground floor has been opened to the outside, which has been transformed into the reception and the restaurant, a gallery connected to the garden that concentrates the accesses, with the generation of a new entrance porch, and allows for generous terraces. in the first-floor apartments.

Isolate and contextualize.- Thirdly, the energy improvement of the property and the search for an identity are proposed. The entire existing volume has been insulated on the outside with a new thermal skin that fulfills, at the same time, a technical function and a conceptual function. This new envelope allows for optimal energy efficiency of the building and, in turn, through the use of ceramics, search for a new identity historically connecting the building with the modernist and noucentista houses of the early 20th century.


Transformation of an abandoned building by NUA architectures. Photograph by Jose Hevia.

Open and naturalize.- Finally, the exterior spaces and the relationship of the building with the city have been rethought. The existing paved exterior terrace has been replaced by a low-maintenance, low-water Mediterranean garden, eliminating the heat island effect, allowing natural drainage of rainwater, and generating shady spaces. The new garden has been opened visually and physically to the public space, achieving accessibility to the building with a new ramp, transforming a hard and rough exterior into a small oasis.

At the program level, the building has collective spaces and technical and service spaces on the ground floor, and 6 types of apartments, two of them on the ground floor, and four on each typical floor. The conception of the apartments, inserted into the existing wall structure, is a concatenation of basic cells that can be made independent or connected, promoting good sunlight, double orientations, and cross ventilation. Thus, all housing units have a space to cook and eat, a space to rest, and a space to wash.

From the point of view of materiality, only one material is used, ceramic, and a single format, traditional rasilla. A single piece in two finish versions that solves all the situations of the project: The tile in a natural finish and the glazed tile in bottle green, which are used to contextualize the façade with the history of the place, following the modernist and noucentista construction tradition. of the summer houses in Salou. A single piece that assumes, at the same time, technical, aesthetic, and symbolic functions and that holistically characterizes the project.

A new life for a forgotten building. A reuse and recycling project that reviews the coastal tourism model by proposing a temporary reconnection with the history of the place.

More information

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Architects
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NUA arquitectures. Lead architects.- Arnau Tiñena, Maria Rius, Ferran Tiñena.
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Project team
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Alfons Güell, Paula Roch, Àngels Cañellas, Alba Azábal.
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Collaborators
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Technical architects.- Albert Vilà, Júlia Oriol.
Structure.- Windmill Structural Consultants.
Installations and sustainability.- Garriga Enginyers.
Acoustics.- David Casadevall.
Gardening.- Parks and gardens Aspros.
Furniture.- Bustper.
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Builder
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STM Construccions.
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Area
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1,678.96 sqm.
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Location
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Calle Ponent nº24. Salou, Tarragona, Spain.
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Photography
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Jose Hevia.
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NUA arquitectures is a young practice based in Tarragona and founded in 2013 by Maria Rius, Arnau Tiñena and Ferran Tiñena that explores and works in areas related to architecture and design in different scales by sensitive strategies to the memory of places and the environment.

Studio's work explores areas of architecture and design at different scales through strategies sensitive to the memory of places and the environment, seeking to provide answers to the contemporary social and cultural challenges of cities and territories through interventions that have The main objective is to improve people's lives.

NUA architectures has diversified its activity in different fields and typologies, focusing projects from the urban perspective to the detailed design simultaneously. The work and work carried out in recent years have recognized it as one of the emerging young studios in Spain and Europe, within the framework of the last three editions of the Arquia/próxima program (2014, 2016 and 2018), and this one was selected year 2023 as one of the 40 most promising studios under 40 on the continent according to the European Center for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies, and the Chicago Athenaeum Museum (Europe 40 under 40).

In 2016 it was one of the 7 studios selected to represent Catalonia at the Venice International Architecture Biennale, and recently the studio's projects have been recognized in the European Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe awards (2019), in the FAD (2018), at the Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (2018, 2021, 2023), at the ASCER Awards (2017, 2023) and at the Alejandro de la Sota Biennial (2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023 ), including the extraordinary award for the last 20 years of its edition in the rehabilitation category (1997-2017), among others.

NUA's work has been published in different national and international media, and has been included in AV's "Spain 2019" yearbook. Recently the Argentine publishing house Bisman has published a monograph on his work.

The studio has been invited to give lectures at several universities and institutions in Spain, Italy, Slovenia and the United States, such as the Design Museum and the Santa Mònica Arts Center in Barcelona, COAMadrid, the Barcelona Schools of Architecture, Madrid Donosti , Valencia, Milan or Cagliari, the International Archmarathon Congress in Milan, the International Congress of the Piranesi Awards, in Slovenia. the Congresp Scaliurbani of Livorno, or the College of Architecture of the Texas A&M University and the University of Virginia, among others.

NUA architectures has been part of the teaching team at the Reus School of Art and Design (EADR), of the Barcelona University School of Design and Engineering (ELISAVA) and is currently part of the School's Projects and Urban Planning teaching team. of Architecture of Reus (EAR-URV). He has also participated as an external jury in several critical sessions at the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB-UPC), at the School of Architecture of the International University of Catalonia (UIC), at the de la Salle School of Architecture (URL), and at the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University.
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