israel blascocv + portfolio

2012

single-family house between party wallsprivate/housing/builtpolinya/valencia/spain2008

There are two previous constructions in the plot. One located in front and intended for garage and warehouse. Another located inside without spe-cific use. The project’s goal is to enable the inside construction as study and storage area, and expand the building located in front to accommodate residential use.

The building in front is built in the early 90’s of the twentieth century, with mixed structure, reinforced concrete pillars and perimeter bands, steel girders and unidirectional precast concrete joists and slabs. The enclosure walls are executed with concrete blocks. The interior partitions are executed with cera-mic bricks. Despite being a modest promotion, there have been no structural or construction problems. This building has a floor area of about 93.60 m2.

The building located at the plot’s bottom, newly constructed, consists of a double sheet bearing wall, lightweight ceramic block inside and ceramic bricks outside. The cover is “not walkable”, of Arabic tiles over ceramic bricks, supported by solid wood joists, which rest on the plot’s end wall and the one described above, forming a roof that pours water into the plot . Halfway up, a mezzanine appears composed of floor boards on joists of solid wood. This building has a floor area of about 53.44 m2.

The intervention responds to needs program proposed by the owners, which aims to enable the construction of plot’s bottom building as a living area with study, and façade building with daytime units and garage on ground floor, and bedrooms on first floor.

Also special care should be starring the courtyard treatment, which is linked primarily to the kitchen and the living area to enhance its use as outdoors space.

The project is the expansion in the north to an existing teaching building, which support bodies, relationship pergolas, sports areas and outdoor flooring are the starting point of our proposal. We design a building for tea-ching purposes for the phase of early childhood education.All the program is placed together into two parallel parts which organize the northeastern edge of the plot, freeing up space in the sunniest area, and creating a front built which emphasizes on access, in response to the urban fabric.

The building is proposed through a scheme of linear strips in response to the above described premises. We try to organize the new building of the school in compliance with existing alignments, so that helps to organize the outdoor space creating rationality in all the set. The access has been proposed near the one existing, and reception courtyard has been created, which in turn is connected visually with the entrance area of elementary students. Between these two spaces appears the garden, although not program requirement, the existing one is modified by the disposotion of the new classrooms.

Looking for the best orientation, we place two parallel bars that house the classrooms, with sprawling courtyards outside the classroom to the south. In one of the bars are three classrooms that are accessed from a glazed corridor overlooking the garden. On the other bar remain the other six clas-srooms. The entrance hall gives access to the common parts, and from there connects with the child play area.

This scheme creates linear parts with enough urban entity, as befits a dota-tional building, releasing much of the solar surface to courtyard garden and related to the rest of the existing center.

Bonavista childhood school expansionpublic/educative/builtalaquas/valencia/spain2008

Classrooms are grouped in pairs. Between them, boxes housing the bathro-oms and the storage of each classroom. These boxes hook from the linear scheme, leaving a small courtyard which improves the ventilation and lighting of the classroom. When moving, help organize the space of the outer courts of each classroom, and allow access to bathrooms directly from the courts without having to go through the classroom. These boxes are closed and allow the outside light from above piece bathrooms.

The playground is available at the end opposite to the access, which is achie-ved by better oientation and privacy. Between the existing built volume and the playground itself, a porch area is projected that helps to order the set, and serves as shade for the playground.

La Murta monastery wall masonry consolidationpublic/heritage/builtalzira/valencia/spain2009

Monastery’s pathway enters from the left side of the ravine, rising in parallel to this one until the bridge that crosses the ravine at its narrowest point. At the other side of the bridge monastery’s Church is located, now at the right side of the gorge, and placed following an axis roughly perpendicular to the ravine’s alignement, disposing the Church’s main facade (imafronte) parallel and edged to the gulch, 25 meters to the opposite side. This situates the Church’s only nave on the hillside with its axis at the maximum inclination line, saving this slope with a series of vaulted basements which roof forms the nave’s pave-ment floor.

After the XIXth c. Ecclesiastical Confiscations, the monastery was abandoned and plundered, starting a ruination process that supposed the building’s prac-tically complete loss, saving only and partially the nave’s surrounding walls and the “Torre dels Coloms” (Pidgeon’s Tower). Rough weather action over those masonry walls brought its protective coating disappearance, starting then the process of joint mortar weathering and masonry wear and tear. This process, with rainfall filtrations from wall’s top, fastly weakens the masonry leading it to its ruin. A total absence of roof allows rainfall to filter onto the wall’s top and from the Church’s nave floor to the vaulted basements, resulting in the progressive disintegration of the fabrics which constitute the structural elements.

Nowadays, after the archaeological excavations implemented, most of the complete building ground floor wall’s incipiences are observable, allowing a bet-ter interpretation. The existing walls conservation its essential for the Church’s space volumetric perception, encouraging the interest of this heritage and landscape location.

The consolidation project on the “Mare de Déu de la Murta” monastery walls its redacted following the monastery’s Restoration Master Plan directives. This project is wrote at the request of the Culture, Education and Sports Ministry of the Generalitat Valenciana (Valencian Country Government), aiming to descri-be the wall masonry necessary works for its consolidation.

The Murta valley is shaped by the Murta mountain range at its south, and the Corbera range at its north, surrounded by steep crests. This mountain line spreads along a NW-SE direction, closing the wide plain of the Albufera lake and Xuquer river, south of the city of Valencia.

To proceed to fill cracks and voids inside the fabrics, a hydraulic lime grout injection is performed on the walls clean and jointed. The area should be wet-ted before injecting the lime grout in a 1 lime part to 1,5 or 2 water parts pro-portion, amending this dosage depending on the support and the weather.

Pressure injection is performed with compressor and bolier, which allows to pump the lime grout by a hosepipe connected to the nozzles previously installed on the wall’s joints.

La Murta monastery tower restorationpublic/heritage/projectalzira/valencia/spain2009

The “Torre dels Coloms” (Pidgeon’s Tower) is a defense tower, built to pro-tect the monks for a possible attack on the monastery. Its location in the innermost part of the valley behind the monastery seems to indicate that it was conceived as an ultimate refuge of monks rather than defense of the monastery. Is the most powerful iconographic element within the valley along with the remains of the Church, and its image from the rafts is one of the characteristics of the monastery.

External dimensions in plan are 9.25x7.65 m., with one room per level who-se dimensions are variable, depending on the potency of the walls, from 6.83x5.29 m. at the start level to the 7.70x6.20 m. on the ground imme-diately below the cover.

The total height that can be observed currently is approximately 25 m. until the top level of merlons, probably ground level is not original although, and it is a filler, which would result in a more slender tower.

Despite being one of the best preserved elements of the monastery, it stays in ruinous state nowadays. Original wall masonry remains largely, having been lost among other things, all floor levels, ladder, roof, most of the coatings, interior and exterior also, all carpentry, and part of the merlons and machi-colations.

Its use after the secularization, allowed the preservation of original wall mason-ry elements, but produced significant changes in both spatial and structural building systems.

As expressed on the Restoration Master Plan and archaeological studies previously done, premises on which the project is based are:- Masonry wall consolidation, using hydraulic lime grout injection techniques similar to those used on the same work over the remaining walls of the Church.- Replacement of the floor levels previous to the exclaustration.- Roof and wall reconstruction.- Vertical communication system.- Machicolations intervention.

finalist_VIII dwelling draft contest IVVSApublic/housing/projectborriana/castello/spain2009

The intention of our proposal assumes to consolidate a block built with ade-quate premises for pedestrians around it, surrendering to the urban fabric of the traditional city and attend to the demands of a contemporary residential development. Build a vacuum apprehended, absorb the permeability of a consolidated urban traffic and return the public route to the proposed, means to associate the private level with the social scale, lift our incorporation and return the usurped horizontal dimension.

We impose as a procedure:- resign to occupy the pedestrian floor except that inalienable, communica-tions vertical for private-built system, encouraging the public link.- propose into the metropolitan itinerary spatial and programmatic experien-ces that differ from the historical ones.

Our proposal starts from two simultaneous operations:Establish a built wrapper, in terms of alignments and volumes derived in part from the town planning regulations, through alignments, urban angles, profiles, views, access and relationships to ensure a delicate coexistence between the proposition and the built.Second, these forms are analyzed and developed in terms of optimizing the proposed program, lighting, different access, circulations, the urban environ-ment, the public and private sectors.

The solar of the contest is located in an area without interesting referents. We propose an outright piece, edged, sober, in an attempt to give character to the environment. The ground floor, occupied only by vertical communication cores, relates the interior of the block with the rest of the city, while compositionally levitates the building on a strong shadow.

The block is configured by four stair cores serving two houses in each of the 5 floors and one dwelling built on the top floor (40+4 houses) all of equal size. The building is organized in three parallel stripes depending on the orientation and considering the space they face. The relationship area (rooms and kitchens) is located in the SE face of the block, linked to the block’s interior, a space that allows greater enjoyment of the outdoors. In the SE face lies the sleeping area, more fragmented with more privacy vocation. Between them, the wet core.

Diferent distribution models for each of these three stripes, compatible, allowing important typological variability from the use of a few elements, which ensures the uniqueness of the whole.

The structure (including not only supporting, but everything fixed within the housing) is moved to the perimeter, allowing distributional flexibility to adapt to the diversity of inhabitants in each of their life processes.

2nd award_VIII dwelling draft contest IVVSApublic/housing/projectla pobla de vallbona/valencia/spain2009

Our proposal is based on two simultaneous operations:First establishing virtual envelopes regarding alignments and volumes derived in part from the regulatory maze through alignments, urban angles, profiles, views, access and relationships to ensure a delicate coexistence between new buildings and the previous. Second, these forms are analyzed and de-veloped in terms of optimization of the proposed program, lighting, differentia-ted access, circulations, urban environment, public and private sectors.We reject clogging the block with a perimeter-building assuming all urban conditions wich greatest achievement will be release an uninteresting interior block space. We propose the inside as outside, the street enters the “no block”; the building placed between the free space but also has a clear intention as organizer of the surrounding space.The project aims to generate a grid ordered without losing its urban character, sorting a natural space where people can interact directly with each other and with the natural environment, defining spaces with walls, terraces and shadows.

Dwellings give special emphasis on ease of accessibility, being dimensional and programmatically easily adaptable for people with disabilities. Another condition from the project is a sensible use of natural light that is used as the main tool to achieve maximum comfort and spatial quality.It seeks to integrate into the landscape through environmental design, ad-justing to each orientation a different treatment of facades and lighting and ventilation holes. We propose the use of different passive systems that redu-ce consumption of non renewable energy (mass construction with external insulation building on the effect of thermal inertia, cistern covered garden, carpentry with thermal break, sunblinds, high-performance lighting systems, thermal crystals, etc.) We provide the recycling of gray water for filling toilet system, and the accumulation of rainfall (average rainfall for the area, 35 m3 per household and year) for irrigation of green spaces.Downstairs, we propose a property associated with a patio. The court un-derstood in two senses: relationships space and previous place of access into the livable nucleus and, in the other hand, heat control space -shaded top and front.Housing for young people where the courts are places to build relationships between neighbours; together senior housing with courtyards for relaxation. The housing type is formalized by housing two to three bays with access from outside corridor. Housing is thus obtained two to three bedrooms that meet the program conditions. The bays are perpendicular to the main facades with three meters of light allowing serial fenestration of reasonable dimensions (modules of 1.5 m).Another aspect is the flexibility derived of the proposed typological scheme so there is the possibility of stablish many types as users demand without impairing the original scheme.The facades are understood to be drilled by the courts planes alternating in no apparent order to produce a dynamic image in accordance with the environment. Sunblinds, light carpentry, slab edges seen, large gaps in the general locations of relationship produce facades that are released from the interior layout of the pieces so collecting an unquestionable postulate of the modern movement. This way we obtain rental housing adjusted to the opti-mum operating surfaces. Downstairs are distributed 20 homes for the elderly, improving their accessibility and allows them to enjoy a private patio. At the block level allocating 30 houses for young people.

3rd award_”Casa de las Delicias” hotelprivate/tourism equipment/projectcieza/murcia/spain2010

The aim of the competition posed by converting the manor “Casa de las Delicias” (Delights’ House) into a hotel residential space. Immersed in a lush environment, the project starts with the premise of creating a facility that res-pects the landscape, enhancing its own characteristics, respecting what exists and, by a succession of protected, isolated, livable interior spaces, to gaze at the outside nature.The built presence seeks to remain unbuilt, not clogging volumes, but to emphasize the spectacular views and generate routes supported by water flows.The design method disperse and minimize the built volumes, with displace-ments of the boxes containing the rooms. The program which requires large volumes focuses on the house and hides in the banks that make up the new topography. The volumes corresponding to the living spaces are located on the garden, in boxes distributed randomly on the ground on the new routes that help flesh out the exterior space.

2nd award_adhamiya quarter development public/cultural+housing/urbanism/projectadhamiya/bagdad/iraq2011

The Adhamiya neighbourhood has suffered the gradual deterioration of its building heritage throughout its long history. Regarding its current hamlet, it suffers from serious weaknesses which may result in unsolvable ones, due to the socio-economic features of its population.Likewise, the necessary actions to slow down its deterioration have not been taken in urban spaces, and they have not been adapted to the characteristic features of a town of cultural and trade interest.The historical, urban and architectural importance of the Adhamiya neigh-bourhood goes beyond the local scope. It becomes a value that should be retained through the necessary investment of those institutions with broad competence and financial capacity for this purpose.This Master Plan aims at obtaining an appropriate instrument which allows the development of the necessary actions, in order to achieve an integrated reco-very -that is economically and socially viable- of Adhamiya neighbourhood.

VI contest aula cerámica hispalytpublic/cultural/urbanism+building/projectsagunt/valencia/spain2012

Sagunt has been a key city in many historical moments. Its importance can’t be limited to the monumental area of the Roman Theatre and the Castle, and it must include the whole old Town, full of Iberian, Jewish, Moorish, Christians and Napoleonic rests. Our intention is to propose, instead of touristic areas, touristic routes starting from parking situated outside the old Town and visiting all these interest areas. In this way the visitors could submerge into the his-torical atmosphere through a progressive cadence till the culmination of the Roman Theatre and the Castle. The essential element of this project is the sunlight. The dramatic game bet-ween light and fabric, creating “chiaroscuro”, has determined the use of the materials.The pavilion’s placement, like a transition between city and Castle Mountain, between artificial and natural, has been framed into the project: the brick and tiles’ dematerialization into the telluric elements.