House in Alpicat
25/09/2013.
By Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. [Alpicat - Lleida] España
metalocus, ROBERTO ALIA
metalocus, ROBERTO ALIA
This project avoids the traditional typology of detached house, colonizing all the plot thanks to a series of parallel walls made of bricks.
This walls configure all spaces of the house, interior and exterior ones, generating a construction system at the same time, which takes advantage of the local ceramic industry.
This walls configure all spaces of the house, interior and exterior ones, generating a construction system at the same time, which takes advantage of the local ceramic industry.
Access. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
Exterior view. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
Interior view. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
Interior view. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
Lattices detail. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © Carles Enrich.
Interior view. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
Wall detail. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
View from one of the patios. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
Lattices detail. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © Carles Enrich.
Exterior view. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
General plan. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
Axonometry. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
Ground floor. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
Sections. House in Alpicat, by Carles Enrich and Albert Brito. Photography © David Brito.
Memory of project by Carles Enrich
Alpicat is a small municipality situated to the north-west of Lledia whose main economic activities are farming and the ceramic industry. Its growing population begins to configure a system of small localities dispersed around the territory, most of which follow the model of a fairy unstructured garden city. This dwelling forms part of one of them.
In an attempt to avoid the typology of the detached house and with the clear objective of occupying the entire plot, the project colonizes this place through a series of manual brick walls built longitudinally in the same way as they build dry stone walls in rural areas for growing vines and for separations between farming lands. This layout fosters the relationship of the house with the public road and with the patio-gardens, avoiding any uncomfortable relations with the nearby neighbours.
The project attemps to recover some of the architectural conditions of the area’s traditional dwellings. In this regard, all the materials used on the building are local: the bricks and arch bricks come from the municipality’s ceramic industry, while both the structural concrete elements and the rest of the materials that shape the dwelling come from neighbouring Lleida.
The walls are both structure and enclosure, generating shade in the outdoor spaces and shaping the patterns that allow domestic life to take place between them. The interior spaces are organised in these interstices and are articulated around some courtyards that provide them at all times with light and crossed ventilation. In this way it is possible to develop the entire programme on the the ground floor, defining the way it adapts to the landscape and to the harsh interior climate of Catalonia.
The construction systems are exhibited in their full reality. The walls are crowned with reinforced concrete beams supporting a beam filling of ceramic arch bricks. This laying and breakup system of the bricks allows for both removing pieces to create lattices to filter the light and provide privacy and for adding others that jut out from the wall to invite any future vegetation to take over certain parts of the house, fostering the relationship with the nature and the landscape.
The lattices in wood soften the private character of the interior spaces when viewed from the street while protecting them from the powerful south-western sunlight, allowing artificial HVAC systems to be dispensed with.
Text.- Carles Enrich & Albert Brito.
CREDITS.-
Architects.- Carles Enrich and Albert Brito.
Location.- Alpicat.
Technical architect.- Lídia Aresté.
Structure.- Masaad arquitectos.
Construction.- ECON 2008 SL.
Finishing date.- January 2011.
Photography.- David Brito y Carles Enrich.
More information
ALBERT BRITO
Albert Brito (Barcelona, 1979). Graduated at the EtsaB – school of Architectura of Barcelona – of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. From the beggining of his career his work has been based on three pillars, practice, teaching and research. Master in Theory and History at the Architectural Composition Department of EtsaB and currently developing his PhD. Completed his skills collaborating renowned studios such as Rafael Moneo Vallés, ADD+Bailo Rull and CMCL architects.
Associate professor at the Gaudí Construction Institute and at the Design Degree of Design at Elisava, of Pompeu Fabra University. He has written several articles for magazines and publications on architecture.
In 2009 he founded his own studio in Barcelona. His work has been awarded in competitions, published in specialized journals and exposed at the Venice Biennale (2012).
CARLES ENRICH
Carles Enrich (Barcelona, 1980) graduated at the ETSAB in Barcelona in 2005. From the beginning of his career he has combined his professional work with research, and obtained a Master degree in Theory and Practice of Architectural Projects from the UPC where he is currently a PhD Candidate. His thesis deals with the temporary occupations in the public space in Barcelona.
Associate lecturer in Projects at the ETSAB since 2016. From 2008 to 2017, he taught Projects and Urban Design at the Reus School of Architecture and, in 2015, Projects at the ETSAV. He was also visiting professor in the Extra-Local workshop organised by Columbia GSAPP in 2019, has collaborated on international master’s degrees such as the BIARCH in 2012 and the master’s degree in Restoration at the UPC in 2014, and directed the Vertical Workshop at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture in 2018.
Carles Enrich’s aim of producing practice-based knowledge led him in 2013 to set up Carles Enrich Studio, where he develops projects that cover the entire habitable territory, from the domestic sphere to landscape. The quality and rigour of the practice’s built work are endorsed by consecutive nominations for the European Union Mies Award (2017, 2019) and the Lisbon Triennale Début Award 2016; the Spanish Architecture and Urban Design Biennale Awards in 2016 and 2018, the FAD Opinion Prize in 2016, and the AJAC Awards in 2012, 2016 and 2018. They were also recognised in the studio’s participation in the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012, with the exhibition Context in “Architectural Rowers” in the Catalan Pavilion and, in 2016, as part of the exhibition Unfinished, which earned the Spanish Pavilion the Biennale’s Golden Lion.
