Residencial Villa Augusta
Residencial Via Augusta

VILLA AUGUSTA TERRACE

LOCATION: Sevilla

BUILT AREA: 4400 m2

CLIENT: GABRIEL ROJAS

ARCHITECTS: HOMBRE DE PIEDRA

PHOTOGRAPHY: Javier Orive

HOMES IN VIA AUGUSTA, SEVILLE

This project proposes a dialogue between the private and individual characteristics of the single-family home and the collective represented by the multi-family building, which socialises and creates the city. It seeks a balance between the expectations of living in a single-family home and the reality of terraced housing that is typologically and constructively a multi-family building. 

To this end, a solution has been designed that allows the volumes of each of these homes to be recognised from the street, even allowing a degree of variability in their roofs. This is achieved by separating the succession of overhanging volumes by courtyards. The proposal coordinates these volumes and their materials (recycled ecological wood) so that finally the whole offers a clear image of unity. The use of this material as part of the roofs and facades gives the complex an identity.

To the user, this unity becomes more evident when accessing the interior courtyard of the block where the advantages of collective life are offered, the common uses with swimming pools, gardens and tree-lined promenade. By means of a pergola element that joins the different dwellings and these with the common uses, this idea of building unity towards this common patio is further reinforced.

On the other hand, in order to achieve a greater degree of privacy, the floors are arranged in L-shaped series thanks to which the façade courtyards open only to each of the homes. All the dwellings are open to the south, east and west, achieving better sunlight and cross ventilation. The volumes projecting towards the two exterior streets, in the form of vertical slats, protect the east and west orientations from the sun. The good bioclimatic behaviour is completed by protecting the openings in the south-facing facades from the direct incidence of radiation with prefabricated concrete eaves. The design of these courtyards and built volumes with inlets and outlets, favours cross ventilation in the interior. As the wind affects the volumetry of the development, air flow patterns are generated that promote microclimates that temper the outdoor conditions. The trees, the pergolas, the garden areas and the swimming pool help to improve the interior microclimate of the block yard.

Pergolas and trees protect those facades of the courtyard from the sun. The sustainability of the proposal is completed with the careful integration of solar panels on the roofs as renewable energy sources. The movement of the roofs allows these panels not to receive shadows cast by them.

Enjoying larger spaces is another of the aspirations of the users of single-family homes. The living room reaches the two opposing facades allowing, through it and thanks to the transparency of the openings, visions that register the entire length of the plot, from the front to the back patio, improving the interior space feeling. On the ground floor, the configuration is open, integrating the living room, kitchen and circulation areas into a single space. The height of the ceilings collaborates in the sensation of general spaciousness, being achieved especially on the upper floor thanks to the integration in the height of the bedrooms of the volumes under the sloping roofs.

The industrialised construction of several of the elements such as the metal and screwed structure, part of the facades, or the concrete eaves, allows control from the project, precision and a shortening of execution times that also results in cost savings that are necessary for the viability of this development.