Metropolitan Institute for the Promotion of Land and Heritage Management (IMPSOL)

The Metropolitan Institute for the Promotion of Land and Heritage Management (IMPSOL) is a local public business entity dependent on the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona.

The residential building is organized as a flexible system of 42 dwellings arranged around a central atrium. Access to the building is structured through a sequence of open and covered thresholds, creating intermediate spaces for collective use and social interaction, while the ground floor also includes rooms for community activities.

The building’s configuration is based on a series of concentric rings. These organize the access to the dwellings through sunlit and naturally ventilated walkways, while also separating the wet/service band from the dry/served living areas.

In each dwelling, the dining and living area acts as the central space, articulating the bedrooms, all of which are oriented towards the exterior. The living room opens both onto the inner atrium and towards the outside through a perimeter gallery with a dynamic enclosure. The kitchen is conceived as an open space, with the possibility of being separated from the shared living area.

The project is conceived as a large bioclimatic machine that does not rely on active climate-control systems. It prioritizes passive environmental strategies, ensuring cross ventilation in all dwellings through the central atrium and the use of perimeter galleries, which act as thermal buffers throughout the year. This passive approach allows the building to achieve an A energy rating, with a non-renewable primary energy consumption of 24 kWh/m² per year and carbon dioxide emissions of 4 kg CO₂/m² per year.

The building’s morphology has been designed to maximise solar gains in winter and support heat dissipation in summer. The central atrium acts as a solar heat collector during the colder months and as a climatic chimney in summer, reinforcing cross ventilation by drawing air upwards and contributing to the dissipation of heat. The presence of vegetation within the atrium helps thermoregulate the space and enhances residents’ wellbeing through biophilic design.

The perimeter galleries also play a key bioclimatic role. In winter, they capture solar heat through the greenhouse effect, while in summer they function as protected exterior spaces equipped with solar shading systems that reduce solar radiation inside the dwellings.

Overall, the project combines typological flexibility, collective living and passive climate strategies into a coherent low-energy residential model.