Walden 7 ©STEVE DE VRIENDT
Walden 7 is a social housing project built on top of an abandoned concrete factory in Calpe, Spain, in 1975. Due to its forward-looking and experimental nature, the project was not popular at the time, and the building is still a sparsely populated suburb, which has been partially converted into Ricardo Pofield Studio and homestead.
Walden 7 © Pauline Chardin
Three huge buildings enclosing industrial facilities in triangles were planned for the site, but only one building was eventually completed. Two long strips of low-rise buildings were placed on either side of the triangle, connected by a ground passage, and the interior of the triangle and the area around the building should have been planted with greenery.
Walden 7 © Ricardo Bofill Architecture Workshop
Walden 7 © Salva Lopez
Phase I is a 60-metre-high, 14-storey building containing 446 apartments in a shape reminiscent of several vertically squeezed ellipsoidal collections. When viewed closely, the shape of these ellipses clearly shows a structure similar to a honeycomb design. Taller de Arquitectura calls it a "cell" and is a single room designed for individual individuals.
From the interior of the building, it will be found that these "cell" units are different from each other, not only does each unit have an independent entrance, but the location of the entrance door also ensures visual privacy. That is to say, Walden 7 does not divide large buildings in the traditional way, but creates a series of independent units, combined into one module. It's like an architect assembling wooden structural components on top of each other, on the flanks, to get an organized organic unit while still maintaining their independence.
Each unit is designed to meet the needs of occupants living alone. Rooms are only 30 square meters in size and usually come with kitchenettes, toilets, bathrooms, tables and cupboards of different sizes.
The division within each unit differs from traditional rooms, with walls arranged only to create a sense of separation, while curtains can be used to shade certain areas that require extra privacy. This layout is not simply a reduction in the traditional family apartment layout to a single-family apartment. Rather, it is a modern and completely new interpretation of the rented room to meet basic needs.
This new concept runs counter to the traditional idea of private life as an isolated compartment. Members of taller de Arquitectura affirmatively said in an article: "Today's housing standards require comfortable spaces to suit the needs of people of different lifestyles. We shouldn't be surprised to find out that there was a bathtub in the bedroom, or that a room had been converted into a large bed. Walden 7 is designed for individuals, not families, and families interested in living there must combine two-, three- or four-story units horizontally or vertically."
Walden 7 is named after Henry David Thoreau's Walden Lake. Thoreau lived by Walden Lake for two years, immersing himself in nature and experimenting with his own self-sufficient life. In addition, behaviorist B. Frederick Skinner named his utopian community Walden 2 and planned a similar number of utopian communities to Walden 6.
This inclusion is reflected in different dimensions in Walden 7, where the community is not only a bunch of "grapes" made up of individual units, but also a public hive implied by a complex corridor connecting each floor, accentuated by the City in Space, another project designed by Taller de Arquitectura.
References：
1.https://www.archdaily.com/795215/ricardo-bofill-why-are-historical-towns-more-beautiful-than-modern-cities
2.https://www.archdaily.cn/cn/925093/ricardo-bofill-wei-shi-yao-gu-dian-cheng-shi-bi-xian-dai-cheng-shi-geng-mei?ad_name=article_cn_redirect=popup
3.https://www.sightunseen.com/2018/08/ricardo-bofill-walden-7-architectural-photography/
4.https://gestalten.com/blogs/journal/brutalist-romance-in-the-mediterranean-with-photographer-salva-lopez
5.https://ricardobofill.com/projects/walden-7-2/
6.https://divisare.herokuapp.com/projects/372932-ricardo-bofill-taller-de-arquitectura-steve-de-vriendt-walden7
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