The building consists of eight homes, with two duplex penthouses and two premises, one open to Santa Clara street and the other to the passage. The resulting housing typologies are crossed and open to the front, giving rise to a sequence of intermediate spaces.
The building logic itself derives in a series of typologies and variable surfaces at the different project levels. This is how the flexibility of the pre-existing structure adapts to the new times, responding to the renewed character of a living city and in the constant renewal of its heritage.
Description of project by Lagula Arquitectes
Sta Clara 11 is settled in one of the best areas of the Girona old quarter, facing the river. The aim of the Gironi developer is to transform a 70’s office dense storey building in a new dynamic living typology.
Several surgical operations are developed to transform the indifferent modern movement structure into a rooted Gironi edifice, linked to the urban fabric pre-existences. All those aimed both to improve the inhabitant’s common life quality and to enhance the urban values.
A new curvy courtyard is proposed. This is thought of as modern, transparent, luminous space, open to the sky. As a building heart, it provides light, ventilation, and character to the homes and the public mew. It is defined in glass blocks following the north European tradition, from the Viennese Otto Wagner to Pierre Chareau’s modernism.
Private access and public common spaces are open to this new concept space, breathing light. This new insertion, as an ice block, melts its character to the street.
This new burnished materiality is combined with warm and traditional materials, to create a modern but grounded in the place experience. The new additions revaluate the character of the old quarter-life. It aims to be a modern thought being local.
The assorted dwellings typologies are open both to the street both to the courtyard. The different levels are occupied with multiple experiences of life, from a two-room apartment to the duplex penthouses The flexible old structure is adapted to the new times, also developing a new façade to the street, showing the renewed Girona’s character and free will.
