Critical and typological analysis of the habitat in Spain after developmentalism

Abstract

For the study at hand, it is necessary to analyse the constructive legacy of the last decades by identifying a model and a type of architecture that allows its study, as a specific example in time and place. With this in mind, we can justify a certain type of approach to the “new” architectural project, which may be somewhat appropriate to a given historical period. Today, cities are undergoing processes of certain obsolescence by presenting attributes that have become commonplace for urban reflection. (Guajardo, 2017). In Spain in particular, to speak of residential obsolescence refers mainly to social housing. These buildings were constructed in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and the issue of regeneration has become one of the major issues of concern to the public administration and therefore to the potential tenant or buyer in the field of residential housing. At present, where new construction is playing a secondary role (due to the excessive growth in construction prior to the 2008 crisis), the national housing stock is saturated and unaffordable. This situation prompts other strategies that respond to the criteria of taking advantage of existing housing, adapting them to the present day with more efficient and sustainable spatial needs. The recent pandemic has greatly restricted privacy in houses. It has raised concerns that the standard construction model we have had in Spain and Italy, (countries with very similar customs), responds to a rigidity that due to the partitions and dividing walls (among other elements) are not adaptable. As a result, it would be interesting to start thinking from the very genesis of the project about interchangeable, transformable, flexible spaces, which allow a better adaptation to current and future needs. In addition, this idea would also be useful for reconditioning the family nucleus as it changes over time. As a case study, we propose the analysis and study of the possibility to transform some prototypes of dwellings from the 1960s belonging to the so-called social housing in the district of Tres Forques in Valencia (eastern Spain), which can serve as an obvious example for the task in hand.