Sevilla, Spain

SE-30

Housing by the freeway II

The rapid development of Sevilla since the 1960’s has, like other Spanish regional capitals, led to the creation of dense, dispersed urban areas which have accentuated the discontinuities characterising the growth of modern cities. Agglomerations of owner-builder dwellings have arisen in the fringe suburbs of La Plata and Padre Pío along with the tall apartment blocks east of the city in the García Lorca and Trébol districts.

In the 90’s, new infrastructures invaded the centre and periphery of Sevilla- the airport, the TGV station and freeways, with intersecting spaces and vacant land that generated the need for facilities and new housing. The SE-30 freeway is a physical barrier: aggressive due to the chemical and noise pollution it generates, but at the same time attractive in terms of its generation of a new perception of the city. The flow of vehicles dictates the rules that generate the lines of freeways. From our cars we perceive a new urban reality populated by signs, overpasses, constructions that make it difficult to recognise the human scale of traditional architecture.

Tackling the housing project proposed by EUROPAN under these circumstances not only required an effort to conjugate new lifestyles with the limitations imposed by reality but, above all, it required a reaction to the new condition of an architecture subjugated to unrelated decisions on infrastructures.

The new building is conceived as a series of screens against the freeway, a repetitive pattern with small but constant combinatory variations which we only perceive at high speed. Five large dihedrals, five real noise abatement panels shelter the houses from the freeway noise and open onto the interior of the site in a chain of community gardens. Above a common garage are the five L-shaped units. Their arms at right angles to the freeway change dimensions in order to adapt to the triangular form of the site and shape the green areas behind. Of the 174 constructed dwellings, 114 will be duplex and 60 on a single level. None of the apartments have a floor area of more than 70m2, resolved in single variations:

-Duplex dwelling entered from exterior corridors. Their alternative plan arrangement makes each unit occupy one and a half storeys. The living rooms all overlook the garden while the corridors face the freeway.

- Single storey dwelling with access from the corridor.

The geometry governing the formal structure of these buildings also marks the pattern of their construction system. Their modulation generates the image of the interior facades while at the same time providing an economic solution to the structural aspects of the garage and the building. This system of porticoes on seven levels is embraced by large-format prefab concrete wedges shaped by diagonal undulating metal sheet moulds, stained with iron oxide in a deliberately irregular colour.

Multiple permutations of this single element produce infinite variations of sheen and opaqueness, colour and texture: they make a modest social housing project on a freeway transform unexpectedly into an almost musical sequence generated by lights and shadows, rhythms and silence, blocks and voids.

Europaconcorsi Beta

SE-30