01_BUILDING IN OLD MADRID
Apartment building
pg. 04-07
02_LIVING ABOVE THE METRO
Metro station / Apartment building
pg. 08-11
03_THICK PLAN VS. THE SHALLOW
Apartment building
pg. 12-15
04_BRIDGING THE RIVER AND THE CITY
Bus station pg. 16-19
05_RETHINKING RURAL AND TRADITIONAL
Investigation / Single familly home
pg. 20-23
Type: Apartment building
Year: 2020
Location: Madrid España
Professor: Ditmar Eberle
Team: Mariana Sandoval
Role: Design and visualization
The apartment building is the result of merging different architectural aspects, including volume, structure and facade. Strating with the volumetric exploration; the building comprises two volumes, sharing a central entrance. The ground floor is dedicated to commercial spaces, seamlessly connecting with neighboring buildings. Here, you’ll find restaurants, taverns, offices, small shops, studios, and various activities that keep the area vibrant and bustling. Above the ground floor, the building transforms into four stories of residential dwellings.
The building’s structure centers around a central core. This core not only provides stability but also serves as the primary circulation pathway. The use of a central core optimizes space and ensures four apartments per floor: two units with one room each and two units with two rooms; perfect for small families or roommates. The aim of the project is to find a harmonious form for the building in the historical environment following all the elements to the design.
The apartment building is located in the historical heart of Madrid, in the neighborhood of “Barrio de la Latina”. The site is adjacent to the medieval wall, the remnants of the Muslim Walls, one of the oldest structures in the city dating back to the 9th century. This part of the city exudes historical charm, with its narrow cobblestone streets, maze-like layout, and the use of red brick and limestone typical of Moorish architecture; all contributing to the neighborhood’s unique and authentic character. In addition to being an area of high historical value, it is located in a very privileged area since it is close to the tourist area of interest like Plaza Mayor, the Royal Palace, and some important churches.
The facade of the building is a canvas that reflects both the past and the present. It combines elements of traditional Spanish architecture with contemporary design. For example, the balconies, adorned with wrought iron railings, jut out from the facade, providing residents with charming outdoor spaces. These balconies are reminiscent of the city’s historic buildings, where people leaned out to watch the bustling streets below.
Type: Apartment building
Year: 2020
Location: Barcelona España
Professor: Jaime Coll & Judit Leclerc
Team: María José Brito / Michael Sanchez / Mariana Sandoval
Role: Design and visualization
FONTANA MIX
Urban Hybrid Protype
The project involves the integration of a hybrid residential development above the Fontana metro station, situated in the Gràcia neighborhood of Barcelona. The Fontana Mix development represents a fusion of residential landscapes, offering housing for 70 users and collective spaces for both private and public use. The site is incorporated into Barcelona City Council’s ATRI program (Inclusive Resettlement Tactical Accommodation), which targets plots of land or buildings that have not fully utilized their allowable built-up area.
The Fontana station presents a unique opportunity where the metro serves not merely as an entrance to the subway in the middle of a public space. On the other hand, the station occupies the entire ground floor, leading to the underutilization of the building space above, bordered by two blind party walls that detract from the urban vista of an important street in the neighborhood.
The development unfolds from the inside out, drawing inspiration from contemporary case studies, typically single-family homes. These studies share a commonality in the meticulous approach to treating the house as a system governed by a set of rules, instructions, or constraints, facilitating their extrapolation into a new prototype. This prototype, in turn, must retain the spatial, tectonic, and environmental attributes that defined the original model.
Modularity /Structure determining the inner space
The building is a mixture of three different identities: the niche, the layered dwellings, and the common areas. Where the number of dwellings per floor determines the configuration of the common areas
The area on the ground floor is considered a negotiation zone that connects the street with both the urban hybrid and the metro station.
HOUSE OF HOUSE Solids vs voids Transitions spaces
WRAPPER HOUSE
Gradation of domain through porosity
Type: Apartment building
Year: 2020
Location: Madrid Spain
Professor: Hrvoje Nijiriç
Team: Alvaro Pedrayes / Juan Barrionuevo / Mariana Sandoval
Role: Design and visualization
Overcoming clichés in collective housing design
The proposal focused on low-cost housing, affordable and innovative solutions to the basic need for small quality housing. It aims to promote alternative solutions and to develop affordable and sustainable units with limited size and budget to meet the urgent demand of the housing market, which is not in contradiction with singular, pleasant, and inviting domestic spaces.
As a critique of the usual shortcomings of the housing market, it is an opportunity to take up and revise long-established clichés and transform them into new qualities; such is the case of the thick floor plan vs the shallow. These are hard cases to work with that most of the time are avoided due to the difficulties of working with them. The challenge is to overcome the lack of flexibility, ventilation, and darkness. The proposals are creative and alternative responses necessary in these cases.
Speculation in the housing market often leads to extremely deep floor plans, which require a lot of skill in handling. Depths of 20 m are not uncommon, often aggravated by extreme thinness of less than 6 m.
The most important aspect to be considered for these buildings is the way they can be properly organized by providing adequate visibility, light, ventilation, and connection with the surroundings.
On the contrary, there are extremely thin houses that are not wide enough for two functional areas lying one behind the other. These houses have less flexibility to arrange the interior spaces, as there are fewer options to locate the walls, windows, and doors.
The advantages of the thin buildings include having lower energy consumption, as they need less artificial lighting, cross-ventilation, and a clear view, topped with an extreme facade length, and, as a result, reduced thermal losses.
Type: Bus Station
Year: 2016
Location: Guayaquil, Ecuador
Professor: Astrid Petzold
Team: Mariana Sandoval
Role: Design and visualization
The proposal for the bus station involves the creation of a ‘staple building,’ which arises from the need to strengthen the relationship between the people of Guasmo Sur and the Estero Salado, an arm of the river that has been a source of wealth but has begun to depreciate over the years.
The project aims to revalue the Estero and restore its links with the community. That is why the building has three volumes that suit and enable reciprocal communication between both entities. The main objective of the bus station is to improve the accessibility of Guasmo Sur, a neighborhood that is quite isolated from Guayaquil, ensuring greater security and connectivity with the rest of the country.
Unifying topography
The building is interlaced by a unifying cover; which aims to create a two-dimensional transition space between the city and the Estero. The cover allows people to pass through it and potentiates the views.
They achieve landscape integration with the context. This is achieved by the use of trees; which are embedded in perforations that give a sense of vertically as well as they provide pleasant views.
Transitional volumes
These volumes are places of exchange between the city and the station as it connects the platform with the entrance. The lobby, cafeteria, and ticket counter are located in these transitional spaces.
Type: Rural Affordable Housing
Year: 2017
Location: Sierra Tarahumara, Chihuahua, Mex.
Professor: José Jorge Arceo
Team: Mariana Sandoval
Role: Investigation, design and visualization
The Rarámuris or Tarahumaras are a Mexican ethnic group from the state of Chihuahua in Mexico. They live in high sierras and canyons and traditionally inhabit natural shelters like caves or cliff overhangs. The Tarahumaras are renowned for their long-distance running ability and for maintaining their unique identity.
Karí, which in Rarámuri means ‘house,’ is a project that mixes vernacular knowledge with sustainable methods to ensure a better quality of life for the users. Nowadays, the houses provided by the government are concrete boxes that have lost their connection with the indigenous culture and lifestyle.
The proposal guarantees the preservation of the Tarahumara identity, as well as attempts to respond to the context, customs, and traditions. Due to the topographic conditions of the Sierra Tarahumara, the project implements the use of regional materials such as stone, earth, and wood, which reflect the natural landscape.
Dwelling as a place of transition arises from the reinterpretation of the Rarámuri worldview and is characterized by the gradual degradation of spatial sensations. The transition involves three different phases, which together achieve coexistence without losing the specific characteristics of each phase. The first area, the most public, is the connection between the onsite and the outside; in this area, the kitchen is located where they traditionally cook outdoors. The central area is a place where they can hang out as well as store food and preserve grains. The final zone is characterized by being the most consolidated space where beds are placed like caves, as a reinterpretation of their past.
structure
For the Tarahumaras, the rhombus represents a mirror, the eye of God, or the gift of sight.
Rammed earth wall thickness between 6090 cm
walls
wall
Kawí symbol: For the Tarahumaras, this symbol represents the outside, the mountain, or the world in which we live.
