Prototipo de casas patio

Architects: Luis Izquierdo W., Antonia Lehmann S.B.

Project: 2009

This Project fulfills the following requirements:

1. A replicable "prototype of a family unit which leads to a patio";

2. that "should weave the urban fabric of the city";

3. "in an area of flat topography";

4. with a gross building area of 100m2;

5. and a total lot area of 250m2;

6. for "severely deprived family, typically consisting of 7-9 people";

7. with low cost construction (25,000 euros per unit);

8. which "favours sustainability";

9. and with "the possibility of phased construction or even recourse to self-construction by the future residents".


And, more specifically:

- that each house has its own lot, so additions cannot be made on top of a neighboring house;

- that those additions and future self construction may not affect the quality of communal or public space around;

- that the basic construction unit provided, made of durable materials, may define a permanent communal space;

- that this basic construction unit renders at a minimum cost for both optimum initial dwelling as well as the best support for future self - construction;

- that the completed initial construction unit includes few items with simple, repetitive and extensive building operations;

- that the building of house clusters and site development is integrated in order to reduce total costs;

- that the open communal or public space can be experienced as a whole, in spite of the repetitive houses prototype, and not as a labyrinthic sequence of urban spaces produced by a serial display of the same unit;

- that most of the land area for residential development is occupied by the lots of private patio houses, and the minimum possible by common open space needed to access them; and, nevertheless, that there is plenty of open space available for common uses, as vehicular and pedestrian access routes, playgrounds and park areas.

- that there is as much as possible plantable ground, in private and in urban areas, for drop-by-drop watered shade trees;

- that the floor plans have an orthogonal order, for better occupancy of small rooms, that the neighboring sites in a cluster enclosing patios- share the most of their wall´s length, and, that the perimeter of those lots enclose a maximum area, to include larger patios. Thus, that the lots are square.

- that the houses, including their patios, have privacy, avoiding views from outsiders;

- that the houses are safe, with only one possible lot access point having a door;

- that the common space of the residential cluster can be an open urban space, as a park, with trees for shade;

- that one or two cars can be parked right in front of the door of each house, for good accessibility, for safety against thefts, and for status display.