26 Official Protection Homes in Alameda. Malaga

This work responds to a very concrete situation: a warped topography, a particular relationship with the landscape, an extreme continental climate and the budgetary restraints associated with social housing. Far from the urban center on somewhat higher and more open lands, the building site lacks the comforts of the historical district. Its territorial dimension is linked to the presence of the Sierra de Alameda Mountains. The almost-rectangular block is divided into two rows of thirteen rectangular plots each with façades of about 6.5 meters and depths of 18 meters.

The intervention is set into the landscape in a unitary way under inclined roofs whose color matches the clay soil of the area, in keeping with the topography of the hillside, which drops eight meters towards the west and two towards the north. The work was carried out with deep foundations due to the presence of expanded clay on the terrain.  In order to optimize the structure, the weight is concentrated on the façades so that the house is a single gallery with just two pillars in each partition wall.

In response to differences in orientation and the transversal change of elevation, two different types of homes have been built. The main difference between them is their relation to the street. Each home is established in continuity with the ground, with two patios, one exterior and the other interior. On the north side, the patios are elevated with respect to the street, and on the south side, they are lower. This discontinuity caused by the topography allows us to work with the ideal of limits in a place where life on the street is a part of popular culture. There is a sequence before the entrance that extends the habitable space beyond the parameters of constructed surface for social housing. In that same sense, the rear patios are a continuation of the inside rooms. This common patio functions like an impluvium and is paved with a smoothed slab to keep the water from affecting the foundations. The exterior patios, however, are left with soil in hopes that the users will plant trees or geraniums along the concrete walls.