Ribbon 42

The proposal inserts 42 housing units on a sloped site. Its form responds to the smooth hills of Basque landscape, adapting to it by two “ribbons” that link the street, the housing and the mountain. Two bodies of three floors emerge from its topography, merging into one body to face in a more compact and determined way the nearby powerful presence of the highway. The pedestrian and vehicles access is located in the Northeast, through a ramp that solves the relationship with the existing road in the simplest way possible: through a ruled surface which loft the three-dimensional geometry of the road curve with the two-dimensional curve of the building shape in its basement.
All the units have double orientation and cross ventilation. Its distribution scheme is solved with three bands: a first acts as a filter between the gallery access and the apartments, containing the entrance hall, kitchens and bathrooms; the second band is where the living rooms and bedrooms are located, all facing to the street; finally, the third band is composed by a vibrant game of balconies and sliding shutters, which provide an extension of the house and movement to the outer skin of the building, creating an abstract dialogue with the lightness and speed of the infrastructure nearby.