Development of 22 homes in Vilafranca de Bonany, Mallorca

The project

The aim of the Public Rental housing programme is to alleviate the collateral effects of tourism, which makes it harder for residents to access housing.

In terms of the supply and demand of publicly-subsidised housing, the Balearic Island Housing Institute (IBAVI) manages a fleet of 1,768 homes, 20 of which are currently available and in the process of being awarded.

The demand for housing is on the upswing. As of 9 August 2019, a total of 5,896 requests have been made to be put on the Public Register of Social Housing Applicants on the island of Mallorca, 611 in Menorca, 2,521 in Ibiza and 217 in Formentera, amounting to a total of 9,183 applications for all four islands.

Furthermore, in environmental terms the main causes of deterioration are the industrial categories of production and consumption. This also occurs in the construction industry. In the case of the Balearic Islands, buildings create more pollution than all transport by aircraft, cars, trucks and boats combined.

They pollute when we build them and when we use them. Accordingly, all housing developed by IBAVI have close to zero energy consumption (nZEB) in order to comply with the EU’s 20/20/20 energy goals, which in Spain equates to an A-class rating for residential buildings.

The project for 22 social housing homes is planned for the boundary between urban and agricultural land in Vilafranca de Bonany. This is the boundary between the urban fabric where space is formed by distance (negative space created by collective space) and the agricultural fabric where the built form needs to be defined within its contours.

The urban layout of the town features a sequence of spaces which, from the street or from the countryside, could be described as: public space, service entrance, private street, courtyard, house. The proposal is in response to this fact: access from the street is to a series of intermediates spaces that provide access to the homes, and which in sequence are: the house and the public frontage or in the garden, the stream and the agricultural landscape.

Regulations allow for three floors to be built, provided that the second floor is irreversibly linked to the first floor both physically and in registry terms, which means opting for a duplex design to make the most of the building’s potential.  This type of design, as on the ground floor, is for a through building, to ensure crossed ventilation. The interior staircase allows for a courtyard in the duplex and a skylight above the central walkway on the first floor.