a+u 2023:02 Feature: HARQUITECTES
Content
a+u’s February issue features HARQUITECTES. Founded in 2000 by 4 classmates from the Vallès School of Architecture (today’s ETSAV–UPC), the office is situated in modest environs in Sabadell, a town in the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. Remaining rooted in this part of Catalonia – allowing them deep immersion in their projects – HARQUITECTES’s work emphatically embodies the sensibilities of living under the Mediterranean sun, yet their architecture exudes clear ambition of universal relevance. Even the most modest works are compelling on multiple levels: materiality, tectonics, urbanity, and climatic performance coming into a coherent whole. As illustrated by so-called climate sections, their buildings are passive thermal machines – harmonizing the built and natural to achieve comfort. These performative design strategies “do not remain phenomena of building physics, but rather are ‘spatialized’ and ‘architectonized’ in the projects – brought to the level of architectural concept, structure, and expression,” as remarked by Andrea Deplazes. Among the 18 works presented here, 9 public buildings and 9 private residences, we find the use of unfinished bricks that blur the threshold between inside and outside, in-between spaces differentiated by materiality, and natural ventilation systems that satisfy even exacting industrial uses. As they embark upon larger-scale institutional and public buildings, HARQUITECTES continues to employ the same detailed and holistic approach, thus elevating their work into the ethical realm. (a+u)
Essays:
Implicit Pulsion / The Passing of Time / Responsible Architecture /
Our Project
HARQUITECTES
Student Residence 912
ICTA Research Center 1102
Social Housing 1737
School Refurbishment 906
Lleialtat Santsenca Civic Center 1214
Cristalleries Planell Civic Center 1015
Clos Pachem Winery 1507
House 1105
House 1101
House 1311
House 1014
House 1413
House 1522
House 905
House 1616
House 1721
Social Housing 2104
MACBA Contemporary Art Museum 2021
Essay:
The Double Climate (Back to the Roots of Architecture)
Andrea Deplazes
Winning Entries of the Central Glass International Architectural Design
Competition 2022