Architect：Lagula Arquitectes

Location：Carretera N-II Km701 Plot C1.10, Spain

Project Year：2011

Category：Private Houses

Z-Balca House reconsiders some of Lagula’s formal and material premises previously used in PGAC. The origin of such questioning comes from the PGAC management itself, who was interested in a non-conventional building, and interested in the use of dry construction technologies.

In a conversation during the conception, PGAC management reminded us the sentence they saw in a documentary. According to Buckminster Fuller, he once asked Sir Norman Foster: How much does your building weigh, Mr.Foster?

Reconsider the structural and construction origin inevitably implies to questioning the formal consequences of our decisions. It would be strange to see a new Tesla vehicle reproduce the (non) aerodynamic shapes of the ancient Ford T. In the same way, new construction technologies need to achieve their own formal expression. Their own beauty canon.

In this way, Z-Balca represents a bet for a new construction technology, and therefore a new shape, but with no garish repertoire. Its optimized steel structure allows a recyclable construction, reducing its environmental footprint. The same criteria of lightness, energy optimization, isolation maximization, and the use of materials with a second life after the current, are used in almost the totality of the volume.

The selection of zinc as a façade finishing material was one of the critical decisions of the project.

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