Material expression and domestic life. Housing complex in Heerhugowaard by Mateo Arquitectura
19/01/2021.
[Heerhugowaard] The Netherlands
metalocus, KRYSSTELL MARÍN
metalocus, KRYSSTELL MARÍN
Description of project by Mateo Arquitectura
Urban Plan
Three different buildings surround a large inner space. In this courtyard we find the car park. Partially closed and covered with vegetation, it offers the backdrop to the scene. The buildings contain dwellings. They vary in volume and floor plan, and set out to configure an urban form that adapts to the place and the use. The dwellings aim to offer high levels of interior quality and all have large outdoor terraces. The resulting form is designed to adapt to the domestic nature of the whole and aims to be qualitative, varied, artisanal, multiple and human. It sets out to avoid the abstract, monotonous rigidity of many examples of contemporary dwellings.
Material
Working with matter is a mental activity, but it involves experimenting physical, sensible presence. In Heerhugowaard (Holland), as we construct dwellings, we experiment with the prototype in the timberwork of part of the facings. On site, we begin with the samples of bricks, and this constant movement of hands and textures.
The idea behind its rugged, rustic, varied envelope is to avoid typical Dutch abstraction and generate a more complex, perhaps baroque, skin than is usual, as an immediate reaction to the nearby domesticity.
The harder, most superficial layer uses different colours and textures of brick, a traditional Dutch material, while a second layer of painted timber anchors the building in its setting. In the framework of this project, experimentally, construction is purely digital (that is, paperless), with rationality, efficiency and prefabrication as the clear protagonists. The project accepts these coordinates with pleasure and, in large parts, further introduces places and surfaces that remind us of the archaic conditions of construction, the artisan meeting of hand and head. As a possibility, too, of sensible, material expression in contact with domestic life, for which these buildings are intended.
Josep Lluís Mateo was born in Barcelona (1949) and graduated in Architecture in 1974 from the ETSAB and gained his doctorate (cum laude) at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 1994.
Mateo’s practice is based in Barcelona, and he is currently involved in a number of local and international projects such as the new Film Theatre of Catalonia in Barcelona, the new headquarters for PGGM Pension Fund Company in Zeist, Holland and the office building on the former site of Renault factories in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, among others.
With each of his projects, Mateo seeks to connect the practice of construction with research and development in both intellectual and programmatic terms. He works in the area between the sphere of ideas and the physical world of reality.
Academic collaborations and teaching:
Josep Lluís Mateo has been Professor of the Architecture Department at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich (ETH-Z) since 2002. He has also taught and lectured at numerous institutions around the world, including Princeton, Columbia University in New York, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, ABK Stuttgart, UP8 Paris, OAF Oslo and ITESM Mexico. He was Visiting Scholar at the Jean P. Getty Center in Los Angeles from 1991 to 1992. Josep Lluís Mateo is President since 2009 of the Board of Directors of the Barcelona Institute of Architecture. He has been a member of a number of juries and expert committees, including the Quality Committee of Barcelona City Council (2000-2008), and for prizes such as the European Landscape Award and the Thyssen Award.
Recent exhibitions and prizes:
The practice’s work has been exhibited on numerous occasions thanks to its international influence. New York’s MoMA devoted a space in the exhibition “Spain: On Site” (2006) to its apartment building in Valencia for the Sociopolis Project. Individual exhibitions include those at Ras Gallery (Barcelona, 2009), Architekturgalerie Aedes (Berlin, 2004), Architekturzentrum Wien (Vienna, 1998), Col•legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (Barcelona, 1998),Galerie Fragner (Prague, 1998), Galerie Aedes (Berlin, 1994), Architekturgalerie Luzern (Luzern, 1992) and Architekturgalerie Munich (Munich, 1991).
The work of Josep Lluís Mateo has been awarded many prizes, including:
- Top International Purpose-Built Venue 2008, First Prize. Best International Convention Centre category.
Organized by C&IT magazine, London. Project: CCIB-Barcelona International Convention Centre
- 2008 Archizinc Award, First Prize. Collective Housing category. Project: Sant Jordi Students’ Hall of Residence, Barcelona
- European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture - Mies van der Rohe Award 2005, Runner-up. Project: CCIB- Barcelona International Convention Centre
- 15th Award of Grupo Dragados de Arquitectura.