Transparent city
Javier Fernández Contreras (ES)
Dingting Chen (CN)
architects
Europan 11 Cerdanyola del Vallès
runner-up
The idea of Reconnection in architecture undoubtedly has to do with generating the optimum conditions for different identities to coexist and find their own place in the contemporary city.
Our proposal is simple: different blocks of different sizes give shape to different scales of public space, as to sue people's differing preferences. The multi-scalarity so generated will be simultaneously perceptible from any side of the project, so that intimacy and human interaction will coexist at the same place.
We propose to make the blocks simultaneously dense and transparent, and to do so, we have reduced the bay to 5m, so that the blocks can literally be seen as inhabited walls. We have grouped them in clusters that maximize the number of individual houses and creates successive layers of urban landscape. We have perforated the blocks with a profuse kaleidoscope of voids, which provide cross-views and light.
The resulting blocks have been compacted and skewed in a movement that creates cosy patios and generous open spaces. The heterogeneous voids will allow successive layers of buildings, open spaces and nature to be seen at a glance.




This project is connected to the following themes
Habitat - Autonomous morphology
The Transparent City is an answer to deal with the fragmented diversity of the area. A residential development is organized around a network of porous and linked blocks as the result of a grid evolution. The interior courts are interconnected thanks to a high degree of permeability.