Palau Moxo/

TdB Architects

Spain

Location(City/Country):

Barcelona / Spain

Tipology:

Transformational use Residential

Year (Design/Construction):

2019 / 2023

Area (Net/Gross):

2617 m2 / -

Operational Carbon emissions (B6) kgCO2e/m2/y:

Embodied Carbon emissions (A1-A3) kgCO2e/m2:

Transformation of an 18th-century Baroque palace in Barcelona into collective housing.
Utilizes traditional Catalan construction methods, ensuring efficient use of materials like wooden beams, stone masonry walls, and Catalan ceramic vaults.
Maintains the original patios to organize access and ventilation, preserving the building’s historical integrity.
Prioritizes low carbon techniques by restoring and reusing existing elements such as wooden carpentry, ceilings, coffered ceilings, and marble flooring.
Incorporates original features like wrought iron railings and other complementary elements, reducing the need for new materials.

The commission presents the challenge of transforming an old baroque palace from the 18th century located in the historic center of the Roman layout of Barcelona, to adapt it to collective housing. This is possible because the building’s diaphragm structure admits certain evolutions. The project delves into the limits of transformation of this type of building of the national architectural heritage.

PROJECT STRATEGY.

The typological strata of the levels are conserved: Ground Floor destined for premises (former stables), Main floor destined for a single residential unit (Historic Palau Moxó), upper floors destined for housing (former dependencies of relatives and services).
The new dwellings are contained within each of the diaphragms formed by thick stone masonry walls.
The structure of the original patios is maintained to organize the accesses and ventilation of the dwellings.
An old stair core is recovered to solve the access to the houses on the upper levels.
All newly created homes are duplexes, whose accesses are concentrated through a single corridor on the first floor, located in the central courtyard.
The covers maintain the original configuration, integrating the installations.

CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE.

The construction systems used correspond to the Catalan tradition of afore time: wooden beams, stone masonry walls, Catalan ceramic vault, recovery of wooden carpentry, restoration of ceilings and coffered ceilings, marble flooring at entrances, wrought iron railings and complementary elements, etc.