Rehabilitation of two adjoining houses | arqbag

The project is based on the need to join two adjacent houses. These are two urban properties located in one of the expansion areas of the city of Terrassa at the end of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. The plots have a practically rectangular geometry, except for the bottom lintel of the plot, which is inclined, and are oriented southeast in the long direction.

The resulting home explores the potential of unifying both houses through the shared party wall. On the other hand, the exterior garden space (inner courtyard of the block) is sponged and conditioned. By connecting the different spaces of the home, through new holes in this shared party wall, a linear housing scheme is changed to an indeterminate matrix of spaces that allow multiple housing forms.

The house consists of a ground floor, first floor, and attic floor. Some subdos are proposed using masonry walls made of compacted earth blocks. Special attention has been paid to the solution of the thermal envelope to minimize energy demand, both in the thermal insulation of the roofs and the facades with greater losses, providing for a shading system that allows regulating solar collection to avoid overheating and discomfort.

Efforts have been made to minimize the environmental impact of the proposal, both in the field of construction solutions and execution processes during the work. Bioclimatic strategies are proposed such as solar collection on the south façade, ventilation by chimney effect through the central core piece, the use of thermal inertia, hygroscopic control of ambient humidity, or natural lighting, to reduce consumption. energy and improve comfort and health.

Thermal inertia and the ability to regulate ambient humidity in the existing walls are optimized with the introduction of compacted earth blocks (BTC) as the star material of the proposal. The facings that cause thermal losses are insulated, such as the roof, the facades and the floor in contact with the ground.

The core piece is designed as a ventilation and lighting element through a system of skylights on the roof and a ventilated walkway on P1. In this sense, the environmental conditions of the central part of the house are improved, which in this traditional typology is usually dark and poorly ventilated. The central core intersects with the roof through two motorized windows that guarantee natural lighting and solar collection, as well as cross ventilation of all spaces in the home. The new core is where the different bathroom devices are located, differentiated according to their use.

The typology of the body house, gives purely structural restrictions, offers an aggregation distribution that denies the nuclei access and services of environmental qualities, such as ventilation or lighting. By adding two adjacent houses, the expansion of this bay allows us to invert these benefits, and convert these central elements into the drivers of environmental qualities. Thus, we turn the main scarcity of pre-existence into the crucial element of the proposal.

The cladding of the facades, as well as the insulation on the roof, guarantee thermal continuity that reduces renewable energy consumption by 60% compared to the CTE limit. BTC provides thermal inertia (as ceramic brick walls could do), but unlike ceramics, with earth we also provide hygroscopic control. This ability to control interior humidity represents an “extra feature” (and unique) of comfort.