START OVER: Build with nature, hands down!

A possible and incipient model in the peri-urban environment, self-construction, involvement and sovereignty.

PROOLOGUE

COVID19 is likely to change many things, and without a doubt the concept of home is one of those affected, that it will surely gain in importance. It won't be a radical change, but certain "paths" that had previously been started will be promoted..

Among them, the renovation of the housing stock in the cities will be essential, both at the program level, creating more flexible homes, as on an energetic level. Changes in the use of office buildings will arise, in housing with mixed uses. Also the creation of community spaces on community rooftops, interstitial spaces of the city, parking spaces, etc. And of course the rehabilitation of existing buildings, many in disuse, in so many urban centers of emptied Spain, in a gradual process back to rural.

However, this proposal aims to be a new approach to the activity of carrying out the construction of your home from the beginning, under a series of premises that are adapted to the new times of climate crisis, environmental and sanitary. It does not pretend so much to give a single answer, concrete, regarding program and formal resolution, but to show a new way of facing the fact of being able "enjoy a decent and adequate homea ”to current times, as named in article 47 of the Constitution.

BACKGROUND

It was the oil, -cars, asphalt, plastic-, that in the middle of the last century, caused a major change in many aspects of humanity, and people end up in flats without quality or space, spaces only to sleep and a minimum coexistence. But it's not just a matter of space, let's think about a more global approach.

We are interested in recovering values ​​from the past, universal, home environment and incorporate current needs and techniques, to configure that new residential paradigm, that empowers us in the face of a crisis like this, which will probably be repeated.

Values ​​such as self-reliance, trying to cover as much as possible part of our basic needs,  – living place, feeding, Energy-, and the low environmental impact of our actions, with the reduction of consumption and resources, will be fundamental keys to come, and current.

More time at home. More time to dedicate to our home, and everything that revolves around him. Houses designed not only for sleeping, but to live and produce. Combine telework activities, screens, with physical activities, it will also be essential for our health, garden, build, maintain and improve the house, and the attitude of the 5 erres, Reject, Reduce, Re-use, Recycle and Reincorporate, they should be more present.

In addition, cities will have to be fluffed up and we have had too many years of exaggerated growth, that also, they have emptied so many towns and territories. Also remember that nature is the basis of our subsistence and the lack of awareness of the population generates the unsustainability of the system..

Marco Vitruvio proposed in the first treatise "De Architectura", circa year 25 a.c., that architecture rests on three basic principles, la Venustas (beauty), la firmness (firmness) and the Utilitas (utility), finally being the architecture, a balance between these three variables and the absence of one of them, would make such work could not be considered as such. And today, in general this balance does not occur at all. The beauty has become the image that best sells, according to the fads of each sector of the population. Sculptural buildings images, engineers sometimes, that take us away from our reality. The firmness understood as the constructive and material resolution of the building, although it is fundamental, loses more and more quality, insofar as it seeks to save costs as much as possible, using disposable materials, little noble materials, who do not know how to grow old. And the utility as its suitability at the moment, to the place and to what is necessary. Cities sectorized by uses, separated, with great dependence on the car and the asphalt. Bedroom neighborhoods, just sleep, office areas, now work, and mega shopping centers, everyone to buy. Recreation and vacation places, almost the entire urbanized coast. And all of us traveling in cars, that pollute and waste our time, plus, at once. Where we go?

For someone aware of these values ​​and current reality, someone who is considering being able to have a family home or a community project, cohousing, someone who basically telecommutes and therefore can get a little further away from the city, there is another possible approach as the object of this proposal.

THE PROPOSAL

This proposal is based on a reality verified lately in my professional work.

They exist around our metropolitan areas, at distances of 60/90 minutes, urban land available, reasonably priced, en;

  • Urbanizations, that were made during the last century, many times if all the permits and with very basic infrastructure. Second residence developments not far from the city in a more rural setting.
  • Urban extensions, made at different times, with vacant land.
  • Rehabilitation of houses and agricultural facilities, in urban areas.
  • Opportunities for segregation of plots or large homes, for community projects.

Places where housing can be carried out and grouping them, and where it can be raised from the beginning, a good link between the activities of “Habitar, Circular, Work and Recreation ", as Le Corbusier said in the Charter of Athens, and above all with the least possible environmental impact.

Low impact constructions, recovering materials and techniques from the past and incorporating current knowledge and techniques, to ultimately achieve healthy and efficient homes.

Actively participate in the construction of your house, self-construction, to a greater or lesser extent, and also small community self-promotion (cooperatives, cohousing). This participation, compatible with periods of confinement and the foreseeable increase in unemployment in many sectors, (process automation, part time jobs, less leisure on the street) It will ultimately provide us with more time and will provide us with a series of economic savings, of healthy physical efforts and of personal and group joys, that finally compensate us enormously in every way and leave us more rooted to the place, home and local community.

Architecture for the health of its inhabitants, to create a good indoor climate, free of toxic substances, reversing the Sick Building Syndrome, as stated by the World Health Organization.

Low transformation materials, simple traditional techniques together with the latest technologies in very low consumption air conditioning or even traditional heating techniques. There will be two trends basically when carrying out the constructions, one more handmade and another more prefabricated. But both with the same energy requirements, materials as natural and close as possible.

Also favor the coexistence between the people of a community and those close to them..

Architects who know how to listen, that simplify solutions, open to other ideas, constantly reforming, that guide the client during the process, incorporating their knowledge and experience to obtain the best result, with economic means, many times, limited.

It is a global change of the process, that is already happening and that will be accentuated, especially among young people, and here I leave some concrete proposals.