Architects: Coll-Leclerc
Work: Londres – Villarroel dweillings reprogrammed into a high school 
Address: Londres-Villarroel, Barcelona
Developper: Consorci d’Educació de Barcelona
Date: 2022-23
Construction: 2024
Consultants: M. Arguijo (structure), Jose Luis Hernandez, J2L, (installations), Aleksandar Ivancic, Aiguasol (energy and sustainability), E. Peña AT-3 (budget), David Casadevall (acoustics)
Team: Julia Sorribes, Enric Pulido, Anna Massana 
Area: 3.173 m2
Budget: 3.563.038 €, PEC (IVA no incl.)

Due to changes in urban regulations, the Instituto Escuela occupies the existing structure of a housing block that was part of a complex of equipment that has won several awards in part for the combination of various programs in a single complex. With the reform of the residential building for its conversion into an Institute, the opportunity for housing and school to coexist is lost, but instead a building that proposed flexible housing, variability and performability by the user is put to the test. Now we believe that it is not only that the house can be transformed over time, but that the program itself can change.

We believe it is important, after 18 years, that the image of the complex be maintained, even that it recover some idea of the original draft where we proposed double-height perforations so that the Sun passes through the building-screen to C / Londres through holes in façade, green leisure spaces, taking as a reference the project for the Savings Bank on Tusset street by JL Sert from 1976.

We maintain the transparency of the south façade, open to the tranquility and good orientation of the block patio, but enriching the plan, originally too simple and with little constructive quality, to transform it into a deeper façade, where some wooden boxes add to the space of the classrooms to complete its surface area (the houses are 42 m2 and one classroom is 52.5 m2) and have exterior and interior vestibules, avoiding direct access and exit to the children’s corridor.