8 Inscribed Houses and Three Courtyards / Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos

Architects: Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos
Location: Calle Miramar, 35110 Vecindario, Las Palmas, Spain
Project Architects: Pedro Romera García, Ángela Ruiz Martínez
Project Area: 898.0 m2
Project Year: 2007
Photographs: Simón García , Courtesy of Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos

Client: Instituto Canario de la Vivienda. Gobierno de Canarias
Collaborators: Jorge Hernández, Laura Gómez Mariño y María Rodríguez Arcas.
Technical Architect: Manuel Hernandez Vera
Typology: Subsidized Housing
Construction: Construcciones Rodríguez Luján S.L.
Project Year: October 2004

From the architect. Inscribed houses, with their small boundaries, are designed and constructed as a microcosm. The inscribed term, borrowed from geometry, induced us to meet new qualities. The limits that we are subjected to due to the irregular and broken boundaries of the party walls, away from being perceived as a negative quality, enhance the shapes and volumes. Conferring them the quality of unlimited, and as a consequence, made infinitely more manipulable inside.

Discrete spaces where container and contents establish dialectical relations that result in the creation of infinite sequential border spaces. These reproduce the continuity of the circulation allowing us to enjoy three courtyards, filtering natural light, tinting it with other shades: blue, ocher and green tones. Environments that are almost monochromatic. The diagonal relationships between common spaces provide us views of the sky and fragments enhanced by the wind, natural lighting and ventilation.

Each element represents a specific and significant role. From the street to the deepest room, we can go through doorways, courtyards, walkways, catwalks and crevices. Telescopic houses, inscribed on each other. We found a dialogue to formalize the tensions found: between lines and thickness (which give us the offset between alignment and party walls); between interior views and exterior tangents. Allowing us to draw a vertical sequence of twists, planes where light slides, more expressive shadows throughout the day. We transform the only recognizable facade into a changing game. Simple origami, folds and unfolds, that refer to thickness. Users, according to their needs or customs, will shape the image to the street, within the possibilities of the proposed game.