Rehabilitating J. L. Romany’s Social Housing In the 21st Century

Introduction: The modern heritage of 20th century Spanish architecture, particularly in the city of Madrid, includes an extensive range of high-quality social housing that, due to its peripheral location and economic restrictions, can be lost without public policies to preserve it. Updating this housing to meet the current habitability requirements, as well as enhancing and transforming it into high-quality 21st century residential buildings, is a task that cannot be postponed. Purpose of the study: The issues of energy efficiency, habitability and accessibility are very salient today, so it seems pertinent to recover relevant examples of 20th century architecture and investigate to what extent the parameters with which they were designed are still valid. Methods: This paper reviews housing case studies in two neighborhoods, Poblado Dirigido de Fuencarral and Colonia Juan XXIII de Carabanchel, comprehensively analyzing the original buildings and their current rehabilitation. This includes comparing the buildings’ energy efficiency before and after the intervention carried out. Approach: This study verified that in both cases, an attempt was made to recover several elements of the original design during rehabilitation. Results: We found that both projects were originally committed to creating an open, pedestrian-friendly city with abundant vegetation, which is still a valid value today. Despite the economic restrictions at the time of construction, both projects used advanced energy strategies, such as the passive design offered by cross ventilation, the unusual thermal insulation envelope, or the efficient district heating. Novelty: In addition, this paper aims to incorporate the heritage of the great mid-20th century architect José Luis Romany, author of both projects, into modern Spanish architecture.