Contemporary Vernacular: casa 1413

Contemporary CONTEMPORARY VERNACULAR Vernacular: casa 1413 By Joon Ma

review of casa 1413 published on Rumor _link

RUMOR Issue 16 December ‘20

I am searching to recalibrate my architectural value judgment. These values, which inform the way we practice architecture, become most apparent during times of economic and social duress. For example, in 2008, the economic crash curbed values that had encouraged formal exploration through rapid development, growth, and excess established during the 1980s. The COVID-19 pandemic, whose shock to our values mirrors the economic crash of 2008, forces a confrontation of design values that are codependent on the market and reveal a need for degrowth. Perhaps this revelation is indicative of my shift in values throughout the pandemic. Our conception of growth needs a new framework to prevent further exacerbating the environmental and economic problems we face today. To this end, I am becoming increasingly anxious about making sense of such large shifts in my architectural thinking and practice. After failing to find a resonant reference point in contemporary disciplinary literature and discourse, I am returning to looking at buildings that reflect a sensibility to these pressing realities.

I direct my gaze towards Ullastret, Spain, an hour drive away from Barcelona, to a wall wrapping the edge of a property cradled by Carrer Firal and Carrer Notaria, which stands unassumingly among the homogenous stone that characterizes the town. This wall, a reconstruction of a pre-existing stone assemblage, is the facade of H Arquitectes’ project Casa 1413.

H Arquitectes have infilled the wall with three varying stone densities, satisfying structural and thermal performance requirements. The stones and aggregates were sourced on-site and filled with insulating particles of recycled expanded glass, cement, and lime for strength and insulation. The wall is not an imitation of the past, but an evolution of vernacular elements adapted to contemporary construction standards that generate new forms of domesticity. The house fully embraces the ‘fatness’ of the wall, expressed through deep apertures, and carved out private spaces. The adjusted depth for solar radiation and ventilation provides year-round thermal comfort, which combines the walls’ thermal conductivity with the building’s orientation. Its operations on the existing wall is a reinterpretation of vernacular construction practice; the vernacular is made contemporary. Casa 1413 H Arquitectes Ullastret, Girona, Spain 2017

This method of articulation speaks to the humble yet defiant ambition of H Arquitectes. The studio seeks to design space that we can all identify as ‘nice’ using the inherent behaviors of materials to perform as an agent to mediate the environment. For the architects, the ‘niceness’ is neither an aesthetic nor an artistic gesture but an architectural quality driven by the site’s environmental, economic, and material qualities. Although the financial crisis in 2008 forced many European architects to seek work in different parts of the world, H Arquitectes remained in Spain and worked with what was left behind. The founding partners, David, Josep, Xavier, and Roger, established H Arquitectes in 2000, within a year of their graduation from ETSAV (Valles School of Architecture).

Princeton University School of Architecture rumor.pu@ gmail.com www. rumor.farm

If this ethos arose from their situation within the economic crisis of 2008, then I believe it is possible to adopt a similar mentality in 2020.

This building demonstrates a belief in indispensability, accessibility to resources, and knowledge readily available to all. These are the values that I propose to gain wider disciplinary adoption. Within their methodical investigation of local materials, construction logics, and passive climatization, H Arquitectes have provided a new template for contemporary architecture. This template extends beyond architecture in service of designing a new home, but as a framework to advance the architectural discourse on form, structure, boundaries, and material culture. The modest yet thoroughly measured project, Casa 1413, carries a powerful and humbling message to us all: with what remains from the past and available in the present, we can do more with less in imagining the future of our built environment.

Joon Ma received his M.Arch from the Princeton University School of Architecture. His research is concerned with the existing built and natural environment, as well as archtiecture’s potential to serve as an apparatus for scientific inquiry.

Front: Photo inside Casa 1413 across the enfilade of spaces programed throughout the length of the stone wall.

Below: Photo of the stone wall from the street view.

Photography by Adriá Goula.