In Masnou, a coastal town in the Maresme region south of Barcelona, Peris + Toral Arquitectes designed a 40-unit social housing building called Air Passage with brick doing more than just finishing the exterior.
The project combines apartments with a future public facility, commercial space, and parking. Instead of forming a single L-shaped mass, the building is split into two volumes with a passageway between them. That passageway works as a bioclimatic corridor and also turns the roof over the basement-level program into a public plaza that links streets, the town center, and a nearby municipal sports complex.
From a masonry standpoint, the building is unified by hand-fired brick made with biomass. The design uses both solid brickwork and brick latticework to filter light and air. Inside, the thermal inertia of concrete slabs and an exposed brick wall around the bathroom are paired with cross-ventilation to cut summer energy demand. In winter, glass curtains enclose terraces to create a thermal buffer, described as either a buffer or a heat-collecting gallery depending on orientation.
One detail that will stand out to many brick and block crews is the self-supporting exposed brick facade set in front of the slab. That placement allows continuous insulation and is intended to eliminate thermal bridges, showing how masonry detailing ties directly to building performance.
Sitework also supports the building’s “renaturalization” goals. Floodable flowerbeds add privacy at ground level, store rainwater for irrigation, infiltrate excess water, regulate humidity, and help mitigate the urban heat island effect. Below grade, open courtyards help ventilate and light the facilities and two parking levels, with more than 20 air changes per hour. Trees and climbing plants in the parking areas are intended to support future reuse as mobility patterns evolve.
Read the full, original article from Metalocus here.