Many of the houses that Vilalta Studio designs smell of the forest years after they were built. In offices and equipment, bamboo shows off its most contemporary face. And from falling in love with vegan sneakers, a collaboration was born that led him to create Coretta Vilalta Studio, vegan, sustainable and timeless footwear.
The studio led by Xavier Vilalta focuses on functionality and sustainability, using responsibly sourced or recycled materials and efficient energy solutions, and now they have just converted an industrial building in Barcelona into a “full-scale show room of what we do”. explains the architect. The project is an example of how architecture can be a means to create sustainable work spaces, adapted to the needs and respectful of the environment from an existing building.
Vilalta studied in Chicago, and there he saw how entire industrial parks were rehabilitated for other uses, mainly housing, maintaining the historical essence of the place. He returned to Barcelona and for years searched for a way to apply in his own office in an improved and sustainable way what he saw in the city on Lake Michigan. During the pandemic, he came across a two-story warehouse in the La Verneda neighborhood.
They have been the first to settle in the new Besòs Innovation district, a neighborhood that is becoming a strategic productive axis of the city that will bet on activities far from the classic industrial model, the so-called green and circular economy, and the impulse to companies dedicated to innovation, cultural, scientific and industrial products.
The large workspace, on the top floor, has no divisions or hierarchies. It is illuminated with a large opening to the north and a skylight with photovoltaic glass that generates energy and filters solar radiation. Both openings allow the space to not need artificial lighting during working hours.
Outside, the entrance garden encourages connection with nature and socialization. Inside, a large bamboo plant, a common natural element in the studio’s projects, creates visual and functional communication between the two levels and improves indoor air quality. “People don’t think about the possibilities of bamboo to make contemporary designs, when the truth is that it is very sustainable, because it grows fast and has a lot of durability and hardness.” They import it from controlled plantations in Asia, where it grows in countries where water is not a problem, and they offset the cost of transportation with the C02 they save in their sustainable ship. Bamboo, combined with steel, is also the furniture of Vilalta Studio, which the architects themselves have designed.
In fact, they have just opened their own product design department, to edit the pieces they have designed for their architecture projects but also others created on purpose, such as new bamboo furniture, sofas with recycled and organic fabric, or tableware that will soon they will be for sale.
This rehabilitated building, explains Vilalta, is more than an architecture studio where about twenty people work: “There are many social spaces, not only to work, but to share in the community.” Presentations and new collaborative projects are organized. It will also host its own architecture academy in a few months.
This studio is specialized in the digitization of design processes, modular architecture and energy efficiency. They defend wooden architecture. “Here we are still used to building like the Romans. We believe that the heavier a building is, the better, that wood spoils and is not durable, it is a cultural issue. In China there are buildings that are 2,000 years old made of this material, and in France, 50% of public buildings have to be made of wood”, explains Vilalta.
They build with cross-laminated wood, both on the walls and on the floors and ceilings, as in the house they designed in La Garriga, made entirely of this material. The interior of the house is protected from the outside with rock wool insulation and a layer of mortar and aluminum carpentry that does not require maintenance.
The air conditioning system and the production of ACS is with aerothermal energy that optimizes the use of the heat pump to cover the necessary demands. These facilities are hidden in false ceilings strategically placed to cover as little as possible the wooden structure.
In this way, the construction criteria and the structural and installation needs generate a composition of shades of wood, white and dark gray both inside and outside.
