El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura

El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Exterior Photography
© Adrià Goula

El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Exterior PhotographyEl Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Interior PhotographyEl Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Interior PhotographyEl Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Image 5 of 21El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - More Images+ 16

  • Architects: Josep Ferrando, David Recio, Xavi Gallego
  • Team: Alex Font, Arnau Sumalla, Ilaria Caprioli, Albert Chavarria, Adrià Maldonado, Maristella Pinheiro, Clara Ebert
  • Structures: Calmat
  • Envelope: XMADE
  • Energy Efficiency: Aiguasol
  • Quantity Surveyors: BIM Arq Eng + ASC-Arquitect
  • Constractor: Vesta
  • City: Reus
  • Country: Spain
More SpecsLess Specs
El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Exterior Photography
© Adrià Goula

Text description provided by the architects. El Roser Social Centre is laid out in the old prison in Reus, a building listed as a Cultural Asset of Local Interest and included in the Inventory of Architectural Heritage of Catalonia. The facility is an innovative program in Spain. It comprises a shelter for the homeless, a soup kitchen, and a community space, bringing together all the social services of the city, which makes it the first comprehensive facility of its kind.

El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Interior Photography
© Adrià Goula
El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Interior Photography
© Adrià Goula
El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Interior Photography
© Adrià Goula

The proposal is the transformation of a transformation. The prison, built in 1929, was transformed into a school in 1979. This earlier intervention is taken as the basis for a project in which the various time strata dialogue with each other in a selection process that shows the concealed construction layers and draws attention to their various transformations. The project respects and recovers the original building, revealing its structure and the construction typology of the time, previously hidden, in order to evoke an image of austerity.

El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Interior Photography
© Adrià Goula
El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Image 17 of 21
Ground Floor
El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Image 20 of 21
Interior Axonometry
El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Interior Photography
© Adrià Goula
El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Interior Photography
© Adrià Goula

The intervention works at different scales. Firstly, a dialectic is established between the new more ethereal, light, tectonic elements, and the composition and stereotomic mineral materials of the heavier existing structure. Then the geometry of the H-shaped floor plan laid out around two courtyards is given new openings to create lines of sight and a Palladian-style permeability that marks the end of closed spaces. The interpretation, functioning, and routes around the building’s interior are reassessed, as they are at the urban level, changing its relationship with the immediate environs.

El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Image 5 of 21
© Adrià Goula
El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Image 18 of 21
Long Section
El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Image 19 of 21
Trans Section
El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Exterior Photography
© Adrià Goula
El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Exterior Photography
© Adrià Goula

Entrance to the prison used to be from the street via a monumental doorway with minimum pavement space, but this latest proposal eliminates the wall around the yard of the prison building, turning it into a public space, open to the city, that lets passers-by recognize the facility by the continuity of its façades. A slender steel structure is a gesture that recalls the now-absent wall, at the same time threading together three different historical periods. In turn, the conservation of the monumental doorway bears witness to the missing wall and enhances the facility’s heritage value. At a more domestic scale, elements such as windows and wet areas are introduced at a tangent, reinforcing the idea of palimpsest.

El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura - Interior Photography
© Adrià Goula

Project gallery

See allShow less

Project location

Address:Ctra. de Montblanc, 119, 43203 Reus, Tarragona, Spain

Click to open map
Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.
About this office
Cite: "El Roser Social Center / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura" [Centro social El Roser / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura] 24 Jun 2022. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/984088/el-roser-social-center-josep-ferrando-plus-gallego-arquitectura> ISSN 0719-8884

© Adrià Goula

El Roser 社会中心 / Josep Ferrando Architecture + Gallego Arquitectura

You've started following your first account!

Did you know?

You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.