Espai Natura, a sustainable residential condominium by Bailorull

The Catalan architecture studio Bailorull with the construction project manager Marcove have completed the Espai Natura residential condominium not far from Barcelona. This is the first housing project based on the HAUS concept, which aims at boosting the health of the users as well as their environment.


Working together leads to innovation, This can be said of all disciplines, including architecture. It is also what happened in Catalonia, where a team comprised of Bailorull headed by the architects Manuel Bailo and Rosa Rull with the construction project manager Marcove put together new standards for the construction industry with the HAUS concept: a holistic approach to the project to craft responsible, creative architecture that includes an integrated set of criteria to make the living spaces more healthful, in turn improving the wellbeing of people and the environment. The first project completed on the basis of the HAUS parameters is Espai Natura, developed with the additional know-how of a multidisciplinary team of specialists and experts who also share that same vision of striving for excellence and sensibility for health and sustainability. 
Espai Natura is a collective housing complex in a strategic position just 20 km from Barcelona and close to the northern edge of the Parc de Collserola in Sant Cugat del Vallès. This single building, composed of 16 cross-ventilated dwellings –four per floor– of about 140 m² each.
In architectural terms, the new building designed by Bailorull, a 50 m -wide, 13.5 m-deep, compact, stepped construction - with a reinforced concrete structure that adapts to the street topography, is based on three fundamental principles, in line with the HAUS proposals. 
In the first place, responding to a studio, according to which, on the back of a major crisis in the real estate market in recent years, families are no longer investing in interim housing, Espai Natura has come up with a large, flexible type of home: a place that can adapt in the short term to the changing living needs of its occupants. In the second place, in order to boost the building's energy performance, taking advantage of the block's orientation, the architects added galleries, like the ones we can see in the buildings in Barcelona's Eixample district, giving each home a multipurpose space that acts as a transition between indoors and outdoors and whose presence eliminates the need for air-conditioning systems. Then, to assure the utmost respect for the environment, the project uses sustainable resources that reduce the environmental impact of the architectural work.
Espai Natura by Bailorull stands out for its sustainability and is the first residential building with more than six apartments in Spain to earn a Four Green Leaf rating from the Green Building Council. It is also one of the first residential buildings in Spain to be awarded class A energy certification and was shortlisted in the Architecture category of the 2018 FAD Awards. In addition, it was selected as a finalist in the 15th Catalunya Construcció Awards in 2018, in the Innovation in Construction section.

Christiane Bürklein

Client Marcove Industrial 
Architects: BAILORULL Manuel Bailo and Rosa Rull - http://www.addarquitectura.net/
Team: Josep Puigdemont (project leader), Laura Gelman, Rafael Arbó 
Collaborators
Quantity surveyor: Jose Antonio Quesada Engineer: Victor Barnés, Barny Enginyeria Structures: Marca Barbara, S4 Arquitectes
Project management HAUS Developer Group Marcove 
Surface 4.938 m2
Year: 2018
Photos José Hevia