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65 Affordable Units in Zabalgana

This is a project by ACXT and it is located at Reina Sofía Avenue, Vitoria, Spain. Project's program: Affordable housing. There are sixteen images for 65 Affordable Units in Zabalgana.

: © Aitor Ortiz

Project details

Project name: 65 Affordable Units in Zabalgana
Location: Reina Sofía Avenue, Vitoria, Spain
Program: Affordable housing
Area: Built-up Area: 10,400 m2
Year: Completion: 2006
More details: Cost: 5,445,000 Euros
Client: VISESA
Project by: ACXT
Team: Principal Designers: Iñaki Garai, Inés López • Design team: Marina Durán
Others: Contractor: UTE Zabalgana 407 (OHL, MOYUA, BYCAM)

Project images

Designer's statement

The building is situated in Zabalgana, a new area to the West of Vitoria. The block comprises 65 affordable units and has been developed by VISESA, a company dependent on the Basque Government. The design had to comply with the strict functional and financial parameters set by the affordable housing regulations. The massing of the building was defined by the parameters of the local urban plan.

With this narrow margin to manoeuvre, which on the other hand is typical of Spanish affordable housing, we have tried to respond to the concerns which have always informed ACXT’s work: a deep sensibility towards nature and the landscape, understood as limited assets in need for a correct administration. With this awareness in mind, which coincides with that of VISESA, the units have been planned taking energy saving and communal space economy as priority issues.

The formal treatment does not respond to the willingness to make the U-shaped block face an inner space but to the aspect of each facade.

The strict regulation of the volumetry of the block imposed on the planning may be altered depending on the conditions in the surroundings; this way the building appears alive and sensitive to the conditions around it.

The metal block gets distorted and appears hard and straight, gathering its roofs to the north, vibrating to the east and to the west at the reflection of the low light and to the hardest street and opening to the south with wooden balconies which try to provide a warm counterpoint to the hardness of the metal.