We are proud to be selected among the most relevant projects of Architecture and Urbanism in the last 3 years. The Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism has chosen our project MIQ as a finalist for the XV BEAU. Thanks to all the organizing team of the biennial Óscar Miguel Ares, Anna Bach, Eugeni Bach and the rest of the jury.
In this edition of the Spanish Architecture and Urbanism Biennial (BEAU), 581 proposals have been presented, of which 100 projects have been selected and 70 have been finalists. The call ‘Panorama de Obras de Arquitectura y Urbanismo’ will reward the most outstanding architecture and urban planning, with a final selection of 20 projects.
The theme that will be the backbone of the XV BEAU ‘Empty Spain, full Spain. Conciliation Strategies’ is a curatorial proposal that will try to offer an overview that contributes to the approach and reflection on the conciliation capacities that architecture and urban planning may have with respect to the different territorial realities that exist in the country: that of a Spain dense, dynamic and populated; and that of another with less density, more invariable and uninhabited.
The works selected and finalists in this call have been chosen according to criteria of quality, relevance, social and cultural vocation or innovation. According to the team of curators — Óscar Miguel Ares, Anna Bach and Eugeni Bach—, the same works reflect “not only the excellent architectural, landscaping and urban planning work of a large number of professionals, but also the current state of architecture in our country”
It will be held this summer in parallel in a double venue -from June 28 to September 16 in the Barcelona Pavilion, and from July 2 to September 23 in the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid- and with one objective: to serve as a point of encounter between citizenship, architecture and urban planning and claiming the social value of both disciplines.
The project is a comprehensive rehabilitation of a single-family house based on a house between party walls, in the old town of Sarriá, Barcelona. MIQ is the name of the project, short for Miquel, the former owner. The original wealth of the house is more than remarkable. Reddish, tile and green tones predominate, with hydraulic floors, brick and stone walls with Catalan volta ceilings, upon reaching the back patio, a wild nature surrounds you and reveals the small rear studio. This constructive richness is the source of inspiration for the project. We feed on this original wealth and adapt it to new needs and uses. Enhancing the superposition of styles, which allows to preserve the history, the spirit of the house and some of its construction details and transform it into a new reality.
Work is a back and forth between the new housing needs and the recovery of the legacy. Something like elevating the wear and tear of the old home into a historic asset. The result proposes a house with three bedrooms, a living-dining room with a kitchen and a study at the rear of the backyard. The original staircase is respected, but the exit to the roof is redone, executing a roof formed by a large isolated Catalan double loop and an opening oriented to the south-west.
The rest of the spaces recover the original ceilings with wooden and metal beams, showing the construction phases of the building. Thus, the rooms are covered with parquet floors, while the original stone and brick walls dress the living room, the head of the suite, the patio and the study. The exterior metal staircase, designed in a way that acquires great lightness, ascends to the walkable roof of the studio, thus taking advantage of all the exterior spaces.
The design of the house aims to return the wild character of the vegetation, for this a planter and a metal structure that arises from the railing of the exterior staircase is created and that will allow the recovery of the existing vegetation.
