i, me, mine

Housing for the new worker

2012

“In the past decade, we have witnessed the rise of a new urban paradigm; the quintessential place of (post) modernity, the so-called Creative City. The brave new environment where the workers of the knowledge industry would find a perfect habitat to create, network, socialise and produce. The ‘flexibility’ of this creative labour is actually a form of precariousness that requires the worker to live in a condition of total insecurity and constant competition with his or her peers.”

Pier-Vittorio Aureli, LABOUR, CITY, FORM – Barcelona: Towards a Common Architectural Language, BIArch – 2012

The project addresses the precarious subject that seeks privacy in her workspace and/or home. It addresses the anti-coworker, the subject that wants to escape the necessity of sharing her workspace and/or home with others, simply because there is no affordable alternative.

Taking the parasitic trait of the precarious worker’s lifestyle, the project occupies the roofs of the Eixample district in Barcelona. Units no larger than 3.3m x 3.3m x 3.6m are laid out on roofs with enough free space. Roofs of the same or similar heights can be combined to form one large roof. Between a selection, and sometimes a combination, of “wet units” containing bathroom and kitchen services, and “dry units” that contain the desired living/working function, small communities of workers are formed.