As Av. Pau Casals turns pedestrian, the corner-site gets the responsibility of serving as one of two gates to this new public space. Yet, the entrance to this very plot will still be by its new main facade, turning towards the placa on its South side. From here starts a gradient of spaces, from the most public, through the communal ground floor, to the private residents.
The buildings are composed of volumetric layers stacked on top of each other, in a rhythm decided by the strong, preexisting structure. While the program solves itself in this tissue, gaps, holes, and paths open up throughout the building, giving light and allowing it to breathe. In this small city of a structure, the empty space is the one in charge, making the streets, the cloisters, and the plazas around the masses- a structure where the void is the densest. This play between the physical and non-physical is intended to stimulate both the creative needs of the designers in the ceramic workshop, as well as the social- and environmental needs of the inhabitants.
A heat exchanger extracts the excess heat from the kilns of the ceramic production on the ground floor and heats the circulating water that flows through the dwellings on the upper floors.
Wintergardens wraps around the South-facade to perform as a thermal buffer between the workshops- and the open space. During winter, the closed glass volumes keep the radiation and distribute it throughout the workspace to reduce the need for mechanical heating. During summer, the gardens open up and ventilate, as it transforms into an extension of the interior work area.
