a+u 23:02, 629

a+u’s February issue features HARQUITECTES. Founded in 2000 by 4 classmates, the office is situated in the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. Remaining rooted in this part of Catalonia, HARQUITECTES’s work emphatically embodies the sensibilities of living under the Mediterranean sun, yet their architecture exudes clear ambition of universal relevance. As illustrated by the 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.

Text in English and Japanese.