LA BALCA
TOWNHOUSES

The area of La Balca features many individual conditions regarding the rest of the PGAC resort. The first one is the eminently flatness of the existing topography, with a smooth descent towards the front of the lakes so typical of the golf landscape. This privileged situation allows the houses to enjoy a perfect south orientation, a close view towards both the golf course and lakes, and a far view towards the Montseny mountain range.

When placing two clusters of townhouses in this area, we asked ourselves questions of different nature. Some were related to the relationship between the buildings and the landscape, others to the relationship between the individuality of each of the houses and the idea of community.

Both clusters are placed in a site adapted to the smooth topography of the existing ground. The groups of houses articulate between them, breaking the parallelism of the two pieces, and creating a V-shaped structure, facing the common areas in the houses and achieving a unified condition when seen from a distance.

Furthermore, the setback in the alignment of each house within the clusters offers a feeling of individuality and autonomy between the volumes. By breaking a theoretical single plane of the cluster façade, the access to each of the houses happens with no view to neighbours. Accordingly, in the garden façades, each of the houses has an independent external area, with autonomous access to the common areas of the swimming pools and the garden. When crossed views between the houses are prevented, each autonomous unit takes over the landscape.

The project looks for an architecture of contained pure white volumes and walls, typical of the Mediterranean and the golf development itself. In a certain way, it is an architecture that refers to the local tradition whilst it does not refuse the interior conditions of modern architecture: the free interrelation between the pieces or the open, transparent and bright spaces.

Therefore, the goal of the project was to provide each of the houses with the spatial conditions inherent of the PGAC projects. A standard characterised by the quality of materials and spaces, but also by the relationship between the interiors and the landscape.

In particular, when developing the house unit, we were seeking to reinterpret one of the typical spaces of the Mediterranean culture: the courtyard. Surrounded by whitewashed walls, the courtyard builds up an exterior private space. Its dimensions, according to those of the adjacent rooms, allow its use as an extension of the interior. As a typical feature of the Mediterranean tradition, the courtyard has small water and vegetation elements, achieving a fresh and inviting space for the summer afternoons.

In a certain way, the courtyard is a key element in the relationship between the individual and the community. In the ground floor, the common spaces of the house are organised between two glazed walls: one, the courtyard, as a private introspective external space; the other, a private front terrace facing the common areas from the exterior. In that middle space kitchen, the dining and living rooms are reaching both sides in a long but well-lit space.

In the first floor, the courtyard remains in the centre of a layout with three bedrooms: one of them taking it as its visual extension; the other two, facing the front and garden façades with their own terraces. Around that courtyard, as the tradition sets, the staircase connects both floors.

The external areas also fade the divisions between spaces with different character. Taking advantage of the existing slope, the private and common garden is organized in terraces, down to the swimming pool at the front of the plot, and connected to the lakes and the landscape. The use of Mediterranean vegetation species also contributes to the distinction of the different areas while establishing other particular relationships between specific corners and the landscape.

The resulting ensemble looks after the relationship of the individual and the community, keeping the high quality standards of the PGAC. A sober architecture is used, related to the place under the perspective of modernity and Mediterranean tradition.