[UP101]
Residencial Portixol
The Portixol Residencial is located in the Molinar neighbourhood, a characteristic Palma enclave facing the marina of the same name.
It is an old fishermen’s neighbourhood with a modest and simple character and its own identity, in which its people preserve the feeling of belonging to a place and a community.
This is reflected in the architecture and town planning:
an amalgam of narrow streets parallel to the sea, with squares and historic corners. An area where the typical dwellings are simple and have no more than one or two storeys. A colourful neighbourhood bathed by the sea breeze.
This project is in the heart of the neighbourhood, overlooking the Paseo del Borne, just 100 metres from the beach.
The main challenge consisted of locating – on a plot of 1000 m2 where there used to be an old furniture factory – a set of 11 semi-detached houses that could maintain the essence of the neighbourhood and complete the empty volume of the plot without clashing with the typical neighbouring houses.
To this end, the façades were designed using elements characteristic of the area’s architecture.
Small, vertically proportioned windows, wrought iron railings, Mallorcan sliding windows, and Zarzi natural stone are used as decorative and protective elements on the façade at the street level. This, added to the conception of a simple and austere volumetry, two storeys high and with sloping roof cassettes – similar to those of the rest of the buildings – manages to integrate the project in such a way that it seems as if it has always been there.
The dwellings form a beehive. The neighbours are sheltered from the outside but converge in the common areas of the interior.
The swimming pool forms the central element of the common area, designed to encourage neighbourly life and social relations—just as in the Molinar neighbourhood itself.
The day area – dining room, kitchen and living room – opens onto a private terrace,
which, in turn, connects with the communal space. Using vegetation and water in the central courtyard creates the pleasant sensation of having a small interior plaza.
As in the vernacular architecture of the neighbourhood,
each dwelling has access to its own flat roof, thus creating a new and very exciting level of use from which to view the sea or to look out over the different and characteristic houses of this old fishing neighbourhood.
