One of the interventions made in this town is the one undertaken by Ribas & Ribas in an area of Sant Joan Despí in which, on being given the job, only the TV3 television studios were standing. This project, carried out in different stages, can be analysed from both the urban planning and architectural aspects, since even though working within the guidelines of the Partial Plan drawn up by the Council that outlined the future streets of this piece of land and which planned the constructive volume, the architects more or less created a new district, comprising five blocks, characterised by the balance between the free and occupied spaces, the green areas and pedestrian zones and its functionality, demonstrated with the passing of the years.

Without doubt, the unifying element of these housing units is the application of the brick, because if structurally the properties were built with reinforced concrete, their façades, balconies and galleries were built with a granulated brick that provides chromatic and textural uniformity to the whole. There are, nevertheless, other aspects that define this work clearly, which are the movement of the different volumes of the façade, which is very clear in the play of insertions and projections, in the gallery-balconies which crown the buildings and in the cylindrical towers which shelter the spiral staircases that connect the attics with the flat roofs, or the way in which some of the chamfered corners of the blocks has been solved, turning around a pillar, and thus avoiding the hardness of a right-angled edge. All the above is complemented by a series of constructive details that enrich and give identity to the building, such as the circles inspired by portholes that mark the entrance doors to each property, the succession of vertical openings that enable ventilation in the car parks or the wooden doors with oblique crosspieces that alternate the wood with glass.

• Date: 1984
• Area: n/a m²
• Stage: Built
• Location: Sant Joan Despí, Barcelona, Spain