Dos bloques de viviendas y locales comerciales en San Cristóbal de los Ángeles, Madrid

The Competition involved actions on two contiguous blocks of housing, one of them with serious structural problems that requiered its demolition and replacement with a new bioclimatic building, The other building was renovated by environmental and accessibility alterations. After the initial study of the study of the climate and environment, the design decisions matched these conditiosn in order to achieve a better environemental sustainability together with other technical, formal and social values. In both blocks, yhe bad orientation of the existing blocks (with facades to the east and west) han been corrected, folding the skin of the building to capture sunligth to the interior in winter and provide protection in the summer, creating a series of “climatisation galleries” with capture windows facing south-east in the living rooms of the houses. These galleries are protected by shading elements on the glass which prevent the greenhouse effect in summer and are protected by exterior blinds that also create shade and chambers that prevent cooling by cold air convection outside in the winter. The exterio woodwork consist of profiles that break the thermal brigde and double glazing with low emissions treatment. In the new block, to improve the summer conditions inside the houses and taking into account that active cooling is needed on a few days of the year when temperatures are high, natual cooling chimneys have been provided. Ther are two types of facade walls, one consisting iof walls with great heat inertia and exterior rendered insulation and the other also within insulation on the exterior layer but with a ventilated chamber finished with prefabricated panels. Together, the buildings achieve a level of insulation an suitability that is about 200% of the requiered by standards. Total accessibility has been provided for all the new and existing houses and low consumtion lifts installed.