is a small practice that operates between architecture, research and academia. driven by an interest in existing structures and their potential for transformation, the office explores different design approaches to heritage and the built environment, questioning what preservation means today and how reuse can transcend purely ecological motivations and generate new architectural discourses. the office was founded in 2022 by laura solsona and eduard fernàndez.
carrer dels capellans, 2, 3-1
08002 barcelona
+34618094105
+34618393293
R 2002
type
use
institution
location
coordinator
year
subject
adaptive reuse, rehabilitation
academic
uts school of architecture (university of technology sydney)
(various)
urtzi grau
2020
master in architecture
after world war I the high demand for social housing in many countries around the globe forced nation-states to create public organizations and provide affordable housing to their citizens. over the 1930 and 1940, various housing commissions were established in the different australian states to re-house war workers and their families. the majority of the commission’s new dwellings were multi-residential buildings built in suburban areas and identified as ‘estates’. the political agenda for these estates was to create a potential labour force in strategic areas of suburbia, which would attract and allow for new and expanded industrial settlements in the city, therefore generating new economies. since 1970 neo-liberal governments turned strongly against public housing since it started to be seen as a non-profitable and poor financial investment within the new global market. eventually, most of these estates were politically marginalised and reduced, variously through cessation of new construction, sales of properties and, in the worst cases, programs of demolition, relocating its users to remote areas of the periphery. enough time has passed to reveal that the systems that give form to modern citizenship no longer serve the interests of the majority of urban populations. the wealthy elite excerpt immense influence on the political process, putting themselves unaccountable. the sovereignty of nation-states has been forever compromised, and are unable to legislate or regulate multinational corporations.