Illa Glòries: Social collective housing, present and future

With this housing project, architectural studio Llonch-Cierto Estudio links two neighbourhoods in its own city Barcelona. The Cerdà Eixample grid is connected with 21st-century Poblenou, emphasising the concept of community.

The new Illa Glòries (Glorious Island) in Barcelona consists of a complex of 238 public social housing units, organised into four blocks. It is a significant project from an architectural and urban planning perspective, as it fits between two neighbourhoods, Eixample and Poblenou. It is also very meaningful in the context of the social housing crisis and must be seen as part of an answer to a deeper problem of access to affordable housing for large sections of the population. While public housing in Barcelona accounts for less than 2% of the total housing stock in the city (compared to an average of 9.3% in Europe), the tremendous quantitative deficit is at least offset by qualitative excellence. Collective housing projects explore new typological proposals and boast a highly refined design that is difficult to find in private developments today.

Cierto Estudio was founded in 2014 by six architects: Marta Benedicto, Ivet Gasol, Carlota de Gispert, Anna Llonch, Lucia Millet and Clara Vidal. In addition to drafting the Urban Improvement Plan for the new Illa Glòries, it designed one of the four blocks, in collaboration with Franc Llonch. Their project for Building A, with 51 homes, was named ‘La comunidad habitacional’ - ‘The Housing Community’ - in a clear statement of principles. The access system itself promotes community spirit. From the street, you can see the large communal garden courtyard, which it shares with the adjacent Building B. Designed as a green interior courtyard and a climate refuge, it features a ‘mountain’ with trees and vegetation, and an area with benches that invites people to sit and socialise with their neighbours. The roof, which is also communal, stands out as a second green space. Organised around three large planters whose volume gives rise to benches and secluded areas for sitting, it is a landscaping project carried out by the local landscape architects Beatriz Borque + Miquel Mariné.

The building as a whole seeks to achieve a gradual and respectful transition between public spaces and domestic privacy. It opts for a system of wide walkways that provide access to the dwellings and keep them connected. However, in its linear route, the walkway widens at the access point to each dwelling, creating a secluded space that can also be used for a variety of purposes, allowing each resident to choose their own options. “The walkways, straddling the community and the home and facing south, take on the status of a collective balcony, making them a place that is overlooked by everyone”, Cierto Estudio comments. “At the same time, they guarantee the privacy of the homes through these voids that distance the interior facade.”

In view of social change and the diversity of family structures, Cierto Estudio advocates breaking with traditional housing stereotypes and incorporating a gender perspective. Their non-hierarchical housing proposes a ‘neutral board’ of rooms where multiple configurations are possible. “This scheme eliminates stereotypes and hierarchies, offering versatile housing that adapts reversibly and lightly to the needs of the tenant. The ambiguity and equivalence of the rooms allows different functions to be accommodated in the same space”, they point out. Its typology is based on a square divided into four equal parts and a central cubicle (which houses the bathroom and services), rotated 45 degrees. The south-facing, open-plan kitchen, given its location, provides visual axes that connect it to other rooms. The design of the glazed gallery, formed between rooms, stands out, collecting heat in winter and facilitating cross ventilation in summer. It links in with the historical typologies of the Eixample district, providing extra space, light and transparency to the interiors.

The team of architects has sought to achieve comfort in all aspects of the project. This is also evident in the colour scheme, combining grey-green exterior cladding with maroon woodwork and terracotta-coloured stoneware flooring throughout. And in the details, with a spirit of domesticity that permeates the common areas and extends to the doorbell chosen (white ceramic) next to the door of each home.

The project's energy and environmental strategy encompasses all the homes with winter sunlight, cross ventilation and aerothermal air conditioning connected to solar panels. The entire structure of the building, on a concrete ground floor, is made of CLT wood to reduce its ecological footprint and minimise the weight and size of the foundations.

Cierto Estudio, in drafting the Urban Improvement Plan for the entire four-block complex, addressed the volumetry, the two interior courtyards and a wide public passageway between buildings A-B and C-D. This was an exercise in adapting to the perimeter of the plot, located at a point that links the Eixample grid laid out by Cerda in the 19th century with the new facilities in the Poblenou neighbourhood of the 21st century. Its position at the corner of the new Glòries park, with 13.2 hectares of public space and green areas for the city, where for decades there was a ‘non-place’, is also significant.