PORTFOLIO GLÒRIA SERRA COCH ARCHITECTURE
2009-2015
SERRA COCH Glòria Architect
Master in Architecture and Urbanism Carrer Francolí, 14 08006 Barcelona +34 618 41 48 67 gloriaserracoch@gmail.com 30.05.1991 - Barcelona Driving Licence B and A2 International mobility
Education
2009 - 2015
Architecture Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona, UPC
Equivalent to Master of Architecture and Urbanism Graduation Project. “The cultures square” Juy 2015. Grade. 10/10 2013 - 2014
Erasmus Exchange Program Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
First year of Master at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (TU Delft) 2007 - 2009
Technological Bachillerato School Frederic Mistral - Tècnic Eulàlia, Barcelona 9.7/10
Results University Acces Tests 9.4/10
Professional Experience
October 2014 - Currently (2 months)
September 2014 - June 2015 (10 months)
Architect at AAIMM Architecture Office Barcelona, Spain
Development of Master plan of urban park project Participation in the project of a sector of the Master plan.
Architecture Internship in Batllori & Trepat arquitectes Barcelona, Spain
Professional collaboration in the design and management of architecture projects in the architecture office Batllori & Trepat arquitectes.
September 2014 - currently (15 months)
Writer at 3nta Learning From Students
September 2012 - July 2013 (11 months)
Teaching Asssistant for Cátedra Blanca Barcelona, UPC Barcelona, Spain
Regular collaborations (3 months)
Monthly writer about architecture topics in the online magazine 3nta, Learning From Students.
Cátedra Blanca Barcelona, Departament ofArchitectonic Projects. Drafting of the publication“Consideraciones sobre la experiencia, 8 clases para estudiantes de Arquitectura” by Carlos Ferrater Lambarri.
Teaching Assistant in AIEM, UPC Barcelona, Spain
Research group Architecture Energy and Environment. School of Architecture of Barcelona. Adaptation of informative systems. Revision and translation of papers.
Publications
Computer Skills
Languages
Other skills and interests
2013
Consideraciones sobre la experiencia. 8 clases para estudiantes de arquitectura. Palimpsesto Editorial. Càtedra Blanca Barcelona (CBB) Writing of the booklet that presents a set of Conferences of Carlos Ferrater Lambarri.
2014
Endangered Species. AADIPA, COAC Agrupació d’Arquitectes per a la Defensa i Intervenció en el Patrimoni Arquitectònic (AADIPA) Communication in the XXXVIIè course. International Days about the Intervention in the Architectonic Heritage.Organized by AADIPA
Graphical representation Languages Office automation
Catalan Spanish English French
Music Drawing Sport
AutoCad, Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Sketch-Up, Revit Course Notions on HTML, CSS, JQuery Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint
Native tongue Native tongue Written and spoken: Fluent. Results TOEFL iBT: 106/120 (2012) Written and Spoken: Intermediate, DELF B2 (2008)
Violoncello: official studies to second of Middle Grade in the Conservatory of Liceo in Barcelona and subsequent individual practice 3 years of classes in the drawing academy Traç of Barcelona course in Central Saint Martins - University of the Arts of London Tennis, Horse riding, Archery, Tae-kwon-do, Dancing
INTERSECTIONS. BARCELONA LINKS
BUILDING THE CONNECTIONS
RE-USE THE CHURCH
Urbanism, Intersections
Urbanism, Intersections
Re-use
Urbanism VI ETSAB 2013
Public Buildings Design Studio TU Delft 2013
RMIT Design Studio TU Delft 2013
THE GRID AS AN ORIGIN
THE BREAKING OF THE GRID
FRAGMENTATION AS A POSSIBILITY
Urbanism, grid
Urbanism, grid
Dwelling, fragmentation
Urbanism IV ETSAB 2012
Urbanism V ETSAB 2013
Projects V ETSAB 2011
THE FLEXIBLE FRAGMENTATION
THE STREET AS A SUBURBAN GROWTH
LA RONDA FROM THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
Urbanism, the street
Urbanisme, the street
Urbanism II ETSAB 2011
Urbanism I ETSAB 2010
RECONNECT-COVER-USE
FROM KANDISNKY TO MONDRIAN
Urbanism, re-use
Art, experimentation
GRADUATION PROJECT ETSAB 2015
Drawing III ETSAB 2010
Dwelling, fragmentation Projects VI ETSAB 2012
A ROOF Public Building Projects VIII ETSAB 2013
INTERSECTIONS. BARCELONA LINKS Glòria Serra Coch and Marta Jo Juanola Urban intervention in the area Diagonal - Esplugues of Barcelona Barcelona Urbanism VI. Tutor Jorge Perea ETSAB 2013 Cities entrances are always an intricate subject to address. When urban centres start to grow and their borders touch each other, nowhere land begins to appear. However, at the same time, new opportunities and other perspectives gain importance. This is the case of the West entrance in Barcelona, through the same street that traverses the entire city: La Diagonal. A gate and an ending at the same time, nowadays it is found in a situation of disconnection and lack of urban hierarchy. The main strategy applied is based on adding focuses. The urban continuity of La Diagonal can be reinforced through, not only a longitudinal structure, but also intense interventions in specific areas. The project works by creating two main focuses, born from two existing intersections, and extending and developing their field of influence with the aim of transforming a border into a hinge. These two junctions develop a structure at different scales, achieving a system organized through a great intersections built by smaller corners. At the same time, an area that was nowhere land is transformed into an activity centre of the city.
BUILDING THE CONNECTIONS Glòria Serra Coch and Max Brobbel Recovery of the Hardaypasa train station and transformation into a market Istanbul, Turkey Public Buildings Design Studio. Tutor Sien Van Dam TU Delft 2013. The Hardaypasa train station, situated in one of the areas with more life of the Asiatic bank of Istanbul, has been unplugged from the railway network. What was a connection and meeting point becomes an abandoned space, a great empty area filled with train tracks and with the station building in a spectacular situation at the end of the peninsula. An area that acts as a border, a barrier between the Kadikoy bay and the zone shaped by the big bags of green, industrial and public building areas. The projects aims to recover the connection of the bigger scale and, at the same time, favour a transversal one that links the two disconnected areas. The market works also in both scales, with a permanent and long range commerce related with a parking zone and a temporal market that offers a proximity to the neighbourhood. The intervention is developed in different consecutive phases to be able to cover an area of such magnitude and to allow the sewing with the existing tissue. The whole ensemble is supported through a facilitating roof that offers the needed services to the different elements crossed by it, becoming a global relation element.
RE-USE THE CHURCH Glòria Serra Coch Library - mediatheque in Verrijzenis van de Heer Rotterdam, the Netherlands RMIT Design Studio. Alexander de Ridder TU Delft 2014. The RMIT studio is based on the concept of re-use of existing buildings taking into account, not only the constructive and functional side, but also a broader analysis that considers social and urban agents before suggesting an architectonic intervention. This specific studio was focused on the re-use of existing churches. It was decided to address this subject due to the current difficulties related with the lack of attendees and the consequent complications of maintenance. The studio had a first theoretical part where different approximations to religious buildings were made, through a structural point of view, symbology, lighting... At the same time, all the churches situated in Rotterdam were visited and an approximation to their surroundings was made. The project is developed in a church situated at the northern part of Rotterdam, in a residential neighbourhood. After an analysis of the surroundings and the building itself, it is decided that a library - mediatheque is the best program to insert. The place, then, can work as a neighbourhood social centre and, at the same time, host some activities of the adjacent school. The project is organized in three main concepts. The configuration is based on the formal continuation of an existing element in the building, the grip, and its enhancement and application into the newly made elements. The atmospheres organize the different areas of the library based on the sound level and reinforced with the lighting. Finally, the general structure of the project is built by layers that go from the most permanent to the most ephemeral, from the exterior walls to the furniture.
THE GRID AS AN ORIGIN Glòria Serra Coch and Marta Jo Juanola Realignment/Transformation of the urban tissues adjacents to the road of Viladecans Viladecans, Catalonia, Spain Urbanism IV. Tutor Sebastià Jornet ETSAB 2012 The intervention is situated in an area of the industrial tissue of Viladecans. The aim is to transform 50% of the area in dwellings, keeping half of the existing industry, which is expected to naturally transform to dwellings as well. Firstly, a study about the current state is made, to be able to determine the actuation phases. Coming up next, the public buildings needed and their situation are decided. The urban project is based on the implementation of a grid that organizes the existing plot and allows for its structuration. The grid has its origins in the typical block with four exterior façades and a central courtyard, with an edification depth suitable for dwellings. The next step is to open the corners to allow an access to the inside of the block. The shift of the building bands and its swastika shape create new public spaces related with the central courtyard. When the block is transformed into a grid these public spaces become central courtyards themselves, linked with the tissue. At the same time, the grid is flexible enough to allow the incorporation of singular elements in the tissue, like broader streets, corners, office buildings or public buildings.
THE BREAKING OF THE GRID Glòria Serra Coch and Marta Jo Juanola Realignment of a portuary area in Rotterdam Rotterdam,The Netherlands Urbanism V. Tutors Manuel Bailo and Sebastià Jornet ETSAB 2012 Rotterdam is the third biggest harbour in the world and the first in Europe. The shore is, therefore, mostly an industrial area where containers are scattered next to big warehouses. The projects aims to transform a portion of this industrial shore area into a new neighbourhood, mostly residential. In a greater scale it also has the objective to fasten the North and South banks of the Niewe Maas, now only communicated in three points. In this way, the intervention wants to become the first step of a sewing, not only physical but also social, with the objective of balancing the differences existing nowadays. The main idea regarding the implantation in the territory is the fusion of the existent structures with a new implanted grid, which is built through the juxtaposition of empty spaces instead of the solid parts. The combination of two courtyards, one bigger than the other, and their extensive repetition builds a tissue that, when meeting the existing, modifies its structure to adapt. This breaking of the regularity of the grid is what gives interest to an area that could have the risk of losing every opportunity of singularity inside an extensive repetition. Public buildings are placed in the strategic points of the area, like a school, a museum, a sportive centre... They are connected through some traces made a reality with avenues, parks and visuals. On a first phase, it is wanted to attract a population sector made of students, who look for low rents and bring life in the area, artists, who can take advantage of the big spaces and incorporate their ateliers in the housing and young couple, who also look for low rents with good architectonic quality. The existing warehouses are re-used to develop some housing typologies that incorporate common spaces and ateliers for the sector that needs them. Finally, it is developed a great commercial avenue in the shore and a temporal market in platforms on the water.
FRAGMENTATION AS A POSSIBILITY Glòria Serra Coch Collective dwelling. Density, intensity and life La Sagrera, Barcelona Projects V. Tutors Alberto Peñín and Ramón Sanàbria ETSAB 2011 “Margot doesn’t live there with her parents. She has a room upstairs, a small chambre de bonne that her grandmother offered her on her twenty-first birthday, and the only reason she went to the apartment his afternoon is to take a cigarettes packet (That now is in a drawer, next to the pile). The visit of the house is a little tip, she adds, so Walker gets an idea of how and where she was raised up. When he asks why she prefers sleeping in a tiny chambre de bonne instead of getting installed down there with all the conveniences, Margo smiles and answers: Imagine” “Invisible” Paul Auster “A new way of re-inhabiting our housing buildings is to give them a number of equipped and autonomous rooms that allow the house to grow temporarily depending on the needs of their tenants. Those rooms, for their peculiar relation with the dwellings of the building, will be called satellite rooms” “The idea is to provide the building with a suitable number of rooms, separated from the rest of the apartment - some floors above or under - that allow to extend the house temporarily to cover specific needs and, once the needs are satisfied, the rooms can be again at the disposal of the tenants of the block.” Extract of the article “Rehabitar. Habitaciones satèlite” from the group Habitar The project is based on the diversity and fragmentation. The idea of the satellite rooms is applied through a mix of typologies of dwellings of different surfaces. From an apartment of 120m2, a duplex of 100m2 that could be combined with the satellite rooms and the courtyards-houses situated in the attic. Everything linked together though some triple height common spaces that allow the circulation between the different typologies.
THE FLEXIBLE FRAGMENTATION Glòria Serra Coch House in Begur Begur, Catalonia, Spain Projects VI. Tutors Alberto Peñín and Ramón Sanàbria ETSAB 2012 The project is a proposal of housing and atelier spaces for an architect and a translator in the shore of Begur, with a rough but spectacular geography. It also incorporates the re-use of an old structure to transform it in a space for jazz concerts during the summer. The main idea of the intervention is a pavilionary structure that fragments the house in different independent areas. At the same time, this division improves the adaptation to the natural terrain. In this way, the kitchen and living-room of the house, the most public area, are placed in a pavilion different from the bedroom and intimate rooms, at the same time that the offices-ateliers of both users are placed in a third one, more isolated and with an independent access. Finally, from the core of the house to the public space for the jazz concerts a string of auto sufficient pavilions for possible guests are placed. The formalization of these pavilions is based on the building of a retaining wall, made of dry stone of the area, which allows the construction of platforms protected from the wind, flat spaces in the middle of the verticality. Above these platforms, the pavilions are erected, in contrast light, like ephemeral tents that take advantage of the protection offered by the walls. They are built with a wooden substructure and panels with a regular span that defines all the interior divisions and distribution.
THE STREET AS A SUBURBAN GROWTH Gl貌ria Serra Coch and Victoria Tous Monedero Suburban growth. Bowery and Sants street Barcelona - New York Urbanism II. Tutor Maria Rubert ETSAB 2011 A city plan is the codified representation of the different and diverse layers that, overlapped in time and space, define rythms, growing dynamics and the urban forms that support activities and social and cultural expressions of the people living there. In the case of suburban growth, these morph typological characteristics become spatially clarifying when read from the optics of parcellation, urbanization and edification. Through their analysis, it is possible to understand the structural power of a path, a road or an infrastructure and its capacity of articulating the city and the territory. The exercise compares two suburban roads in different cities:The Sants Street in Barcelona and Bowery, in New York. The comparative is done through an analysis of the parcellation, urbanization and edification. Afterwards, an idea for an intervention for both cases that suits the conclusions drawn from the analysis is asked. In the case of Sants, the intervention, with a punctual character, is developed in the junction that connects it with its alter ego, Paral路lel street. In the case of Bowery, it is carried out in a longitudinal way, working on the colonization of the sidewalks to make them friendlier, not only for the pedestrians but also for the building users.
LA RONDA FROM THE NEIGHBOURHOOD Glòria Serra Coch
La Ronda de Dalt. Erasing to propose La Ronda de Dalt, Barcelona Urbanism I. Tutor Carles Crosas ETSAB 2010 The analysis of La Ronda from the perspective of the neighbourhood identifies a series of points with characteristics that make them suitable to be a part of an urban structure, in a different scale from the one imposed by la Ronda de Dalt, with its own uses and dimensions. In these locations, where two different urban scales coexist, interventions to strengthen one of the two characters can be carried on. In this specific case, it is decided to reinforce the neighbourhood scale in contraposition of the great trace generated by the presence of the main road, which tends to minimize the presence of urban tissues with a human scale. This operation expects the recovery of the avenue character of La Ronda de Dalt besides its transportation function. The recovery of La Ronda de Dalt as an urban avenue is developed from the neighbourhood scale through interventions more strengthened though the repetition that the size of each of them. These interventions will allow the transversal connection, and the tangential one, through the rhythm resulting from small urban focuses. Therefore, the objective is connecting the two sides of La Ronda and reinforcing its urban character. Both the visual connection, enhanced through landmarks, and the physical one will be dealt with a scope close to the pedestrian. Accordingly, the communication between the two margins is not only based on the crossing infrastructures but also in the presence of focuses that generate the circulation will.
A ROOF
Glòria Serra Coch Market in Tres torres Tres Torres, Barcelona Projects VIII. Tutor MoisÊs Gallego ETSAB 2014 The city council of Barcelona is currently working on a transformation of the municipal markets to modernise and adapt them to the new needs. The market of Tres Torres has become too small and out-dated for its neighbourhood. Consequently, it is decided the construction of a new building that hosts, not only a traditional market, but also a supermarket, a storage area, a parking and a restaurant. The main idea of the project is a reminiscence of the original concept of the market-buildings. The next step after the colonization of a square for a weekly market is the building of a roof to keep the stands protected. This element is still the most important one in the existing markets, defining the space and appropriate lighting and ventilation. The building of this project’s roof is based on a simple system with high aesthetic and functional results. A double triangle shaped truss is used as a repeated element in the roof and covered double sided with lateral light entrance, appropriate ventilation and a general rhythm which characterises the entire building. On the other side, it is possible to reduce the height at the laterals and facade, where th e regulations indicate, and achieve a higher one in the central part. The presence of a high volume of air is important for a building with a market function. Regarding the plan, crossed circulations are favoured, to be able to give all the stands a similar access to costumers, through a swastika shape. At the same time, the building steps backwards at the corner with a restoration area placed at that point together with the main entrance. In this way, the intention is to offer an exterior small public space and an expansion in a dense tissue such as the Tres Torres one.
RE-CONNECT-COVER-USE GRADUATION PROJECT Glòria Serra Coch Cultural exchange center at Het Steiger Rotterdam, The Netherlands Jury Estanislau Roca ETSAB 2015 The project, located in an monestery from the 1960’s in the centre of Rotterdam, adresses different scales with the aim of intervening in the existing, an existing building, an existing context, an existing urban tissue... A new program is placed in the old religious building, applying the change of use as a method to rescue the building from the lack of attendence and maintenance. Due to the existing multiculturality of the city , a cultural exchange centre is proposed as a first colonization of the building. Regarding the urban scale, the objective is to favour partially existing circulations and connect in a friendly way the intinerary between the two main stations of the city. Therefore, an existing itinerary is acknowledged, which is a route alternative to the great traffic axes, based on the pedestrian circulations and the presence of cultural and commercial elements. The intervention facilitates this circulations by connecting a part of the itnerary, which now is blocking the flow, and adding an extra focus to the series. It is through this circulations that three generating elements are placed, which give an entrance to the project and organize the public space, acting as a nexus from the exterior urban space to the interior one. To achieve a global intervention, the whole block where the church is found is included in the intervention, actic as a mosaic of squares connected with eachother. The program also participates in the sharing concept, and the cultural centre placed in the old church and the school next to it exchange spaces and activities.
FROM KANDINSKY TO MONDRIAN Glòria Serra Coch
Evolutive transitions from Kandinsky to Mondrian in gouache Drawing III. Tutor Modest Masides ETSAB 2010 Is it possible to mix two different painters with totally different styles? Or, even more, is it possible to make a transition from one to another without losing the specific character of each one and achieve a whole as a result? The idea of this project is to make a transition from Kandinsky to Mondrian using the technique of gouache. In this way, through the study of a famous work of each of them and its synthesis, a new piece that captures the transition is created. The common points between the two pieces regarding the compositive aspects are multiple. In both cases we find mosaic pieces surrounded by black lines. For different reasons there is a focus from where the composition grows expanding to the space. What has been made is adjusting the dimensions of the mosaic pieces at the same time that they get more regular, taking as a base the black lines ans looking for main coincident directions. Kandinsky’s pieces contain several colours inside the same outline. For this reason, essential tonalities have been searched to finally reach the purity of primary Mondrian colours.
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