2015 by Alfonso Bertran

ALFONSO BERTRÁN 2008 / 2014

I would say this portfolio is an unfinished selection of studies that have been shaping my architecural identity. It is a selection of abstractions that are relevant to my idea of architecture now. They are separate projects and the glue that puts them together is still yet to come. By experiencing the non academic part of the profession this selection will grow through another dimension, a less naive one perhaps. â&#x20AC;&#x153;About 10,000 hours of experience are required to produce a master carpenterâ&#x20AC;? -Richard Sennet-

INDEX

PERSONAL INFORMATION

EDUCATION

Alfonso Bertrán Gil

Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona 2008 / 2012 , 2013 / 2014

Student of Architecture Spanish Languages spoken: Catalan (native) Spanish (native) English (fluent) French (basic)

First year professor: Màrius Quintana, Inma de Josemaría, Elena Cánovas, Josep Llobet Second year professor: Ariadna Perich, Eduard Gascón, Roger Such Third year professor: Ramón Sanabria, Alberto Peñín, Carlos Ferrater Fifth year professor: Esteve Terrades

Arkitektur- og designhogskølen i Oslo 2012 / 2013 Fall semester professor: Jun Igarashi, Neven Fuchs-Mikac, Joana Sa Lima, Torun Stensheim Spring semester professor: Erik Fenstad, Siri Moseng

CadaquĂŠs. View from a rooftop.

FARMLIFE. ALTERNATIVES FOR EMPTY FARMING BUILDINGS Dovre, Norway Many people used to live in and from the countryside but now lots of family farms are being abandoned all over Norway. The family farm as we know it is no more affordable. In order to make them profitable some investment and radical decisions have to be made. The aim of the approach is to study what has a potential from what is given and stablish a tight dialogue between the old and the new construction. One understands the need of keeping the building footprint very low to keep the land for grazing. The new program is either inside or outside the existing constructions. It is fundamental to re-fill the old constructions with prodcutive and attractive program. Productive is to become self-sufficient in economical terms and attractive is to re-activate the area with visitors and workers. Fourth year design studio. AHO

The project transforms what it is already built. The acceptance of the existing potential.

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General plan: Hotel + Worker’s cluster + Barn / factory

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Sections through all three areas.

Main barn upper floor plan. The rooms for the new hotel.

Transformation of an old empty barn into a gastronomic experience.

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Detail of the three direction knot with the existing log wall.

RE-USING TWO CONTAINERS Girona, Spain The challenge was to create a house for one by using two containers, one stacked on top of the other. The site canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be more idyllic, in the sand of one of the most beautiful parts of the country, the Costa Brava. How to go beyond the hard restrictions of the metal structure and transform two metal boxes into a home. The total volume of the two containers is little so it is proposed to forget the existing directions of the container shape and take the diagonal as the axis that will organize the program. By doing so, space is maximized and many vanishing points apear, while the encounters between the two directions create inviting spaces one has to discover. First year design studio. ETSAB

The house bears on wooden pilars to minimize the footprint.

THE 100 METER BUILDING Barcelona, Spain The site is one of the last big empty spaces in the city to be filled, so neighbours would appreciate some of it to remain empty. The city hall demands space for offices, a youth centre, a multi-function big space, and 40 apartments. The project consists of an inhabited roof, where the patio houses are, which shelters the public free space defiined by the voids in the roof (to let light in) and the ones in the ground (connection to the offices). The free ground space performs as a plaza that not only the building users but the city neighbours are able to use because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s at street level. The building deals with the context creating a long shadow that welcomes the pedestrian into the plaza. Being long allows the housing program to grow horizontally, creating empty spaces that connect the different pragram layers and maximizing the houses surface and turning circulation spaces into public areas for the inhabitatns. Fifth year design studio. ETSAB

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left to right: - 4m from ground level (offices). +5m from ground level (housing).

Option A (top): One family with two kids. Option B: A student and a retired.

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Sequence of voids and the relation between the different layers.

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“The column is where the light is not, and the space between is where the light is.” Louis. I. Kahn

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The concrete structure defines the space and oranizes the diferent uses at one same level.

SHOVEL FOR TWO Shoyna, Russia The aims of the workshop were to develop a set of tools. Tools which are spatial, and have a clear architectonic attitude when it performs/ acts on Nature (Sand). The tools can be understood in to ways: As a construction itself, the traces the tool leaves as patterns/constructions How entire buildings, homes, landscapes stop functioning and remain as chests/containers of sand. The project is also an attempt of accepting the nature of Shoyna, by designing a tool that deals with the nature and brings in social interaction. We could say the shovel is the tool were two friends or relatives meet, and turning the act of removing sand into a social, face-to-face activity. Fourth year workshop. AHO

Every year the houses in the village get buried by the sand

Formalities about shovels are forgotten. The act of two people removing sand shapes de tool

Detail of the encounter of the nose and the handles

INHABITING THE BOUNDARIES Asahikawa, Japan 2 houses studio task was to design in parallel two family houses in Hokkaido, Japan. A concept was needed to face both projects and stablish some specific rules. By following those rules during the designing process would give clarity to the final project. The concept should be open to specific states and restrictions from both sites. The goal was to prove that the concept could work for Sapporo and Asahikawa giving them an added value in the way of living the houses. Before choosing the abstract concept, the analysis phase explored and studied several concepts about the japanese way of thinking the space and specific climate conditions as well. Fourth year design studio. AHO

Model of the concept. The thickness filters the use and the light.

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The central space is defined and divided by the roof bearing structure.

Concrete in the outside and wood in the inside. The material threshold.

URBAN FURNITURE Barcelona, Spain Barcelonaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seafront is a place where leisure, sport, culture, nature and work meet. It is a lively place at street level, but not so busy in the docks. It is inevitable to see all the boats docked and framing the mediterranean. In this particular spot, the waterfront becomes wider being the perfect place to go in suny weekend days. For this reason and to separate the docking part from the plaza an element is needed to set the limit between the public space and the docking platforms. The essence of the project is how does this new artificial horison perform in both levels and frames the sea bringing in the boats to the picture, but not in an obvious way. It is a frame-structure element covered with core10 steel, thought to be continuous and removed in case of changes of the dock. First year design studio. ETSAB

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The element on the left hand side builds a parallel horison that frames the sea from the plaza.

INHABITING THE BOUNDARIES Sapporo, Japan Porosity as container of spaces: The porosity, seen as thick walls, concurs the possibility of obtaining significant places by taking the thickness of the wall as a sort of “container” of marginal spaces. A large number of secondary spaces are obtained within the thick perimeter walls, open or hidden, on the inside or the outside. “Thick walls in which the inhabitants can substract how and wahtever they want to create cupboards, seats, shelves or rooms.” -Christopher AlexanderFourth year design studio. AHO

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The inner central space is suggested through the u-glass faรงade.

The action to double the limit to build a transitional space functional and/or inhabitable.

STAIRCASE

The assignment was to think of a continuous space at different levels, and the way to connect those different levels. It was a task to explore the measures of a ideal staircase and develop each oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own sort of staircase acording to comfortability, materiality, light and program. In this case, the staircase is going around a courtyard and avoiding the direct relation with the spaces to connect. Then, the act of ascending or descending is related to the courtyard and creates a gap within the countinuity of the fluid space. The staircase isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t an external element added to the space, but it is certainly something different from the canonic spatial rooms. First year design studio. ETSAB

From top to bottom: Ground floor plan and first floor plan 1/200

Spatial perception in architecture. The orange painted wall becomes the reference that articulates the space.

The vertical communication becomes a hiatus which emphasizes the different heights.

CRUISE SHIP DOCKING. NORDIC LIGHT TERMINAL Geirangerfjord, Norway The necessity of a big scale dock in Geiranger could be not just an infrastructure that solves the current problems of connection with the cruises, but a solution to the duality summer-winter in this 250 inhabitants town that immensily grows between May and September, hosting up to 300.000 cruise passengers. To strengthen the expirience of Norwayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s breathtaking nature the project creates two landmarks, instead of a waterfront that would interrupt the natural meeting between water and land. The terminal has a low footprint to preserve this nature and discards the idea of huge facilities, such as hotels, that would be obsolete in winter. Its verticality and a compact program are good tools for a minimal impact. At the same time they maximize the main need of the intervention, wich is working as a terminal and connect sea level, land level and the views. 120 hours Competition entry.

To build a contradiction. A blind building in one of the most beautiful places in Norway.

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From the bottom to top (left): Second floor (ground level) and third floor ( information) 1/400 From the bottom to the top (right): third floor (cafe) and rooftop floor 1/400

The wooden path goes trough the space always attached to the wall to let the light into deeper floors.

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The strong contrast between the blind inside and the 360 viewpoint roof.

CATALAN EMBASSY IN BRUSSELS. Brussels, Belgium In a possible near scenario, where Catalunya is already an independent country, there is a need of an embassy for political reason’s in Europe’s capital. How does it have to be, an embassy for a new country? There is an interesting conflict between the need of a closed building for security reasons and the creation of public urban spaces. Urban Spaces understood as hiatus in the city fabric. The construction of this void by articulating physical elements charged with activity to define the emptiness. The aim was to achieve The Sensible, Sensitive and Sustainable architecture: A dejà-vu architecture, which is informed by the context, to define a certain present use, but flexible enough to last troughout decades housing many different uses. Fifth year design studio. ETSAB

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Section detail of the faรงade.

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The flexibility of the spaces is the main architectural element. An architecture of longevity.

100 HOUSES FOR SURFERS IN TARIFA. INHABITING THE SAND Tarifa, Spain Wind and Sand The aim of the proposal is to work with these two materials to construct a sensible intervention which responds to the main concerns of the proposal: Incresing population during water sports seasons and the preservation of the coastal ecosystem. Both issues coalesce in one particular geograpical spot: Valdevaqueros beach. Time The seasonal use and the mobility of the sea lovers demands removability or another use for the project. The proposal tries to bring in the time as an actual design element. Wind predominance percentage through time gives us the right time to start building, to shelter from the east, to open to the west, to adapt when kitesurf competitions are celebrated... Re-thinking Competition entry.

The wooden strips consolidate the unstable dune and bring in seasonal activity.

Knowing where we are: Untis are protected from wind without loosing the open semi-exterior spaces.

A house for a surfer: East wind / West wind / No predominant wind

From the interior, one cxan avoid contact with the crowded beach and relax facing Africa.

Alfonso Bertrรกn Gil 0034 652308935 alfonso.bertran.gil@gmail.com