Block of flats

The municipal planning guidelines called for for a five storey block structure with tiny enclosed patios that would provide very little light to inner rooms. We chose to figuratively “commit suicide” in public (for the first time) and draw attention with a proposal that put the lives of future inhabitants before and above the fulfillment of absurd rules, even if it cost us all chances of winning the competition. The smaller footprint of the new building allowed green areas and sports facilities in a place where they were becoming scarce. In addition, the new higher building would become a marker, a sign of the nearby train station. It also intended to be the start of a prouder skyline for Leganés which is a bedroom-town completely built up in the postwar period at a constant height. The new tower established an ambiguous relationship with the locals and visitors to the city, somewhere between familiarity and pride.