News: Barcelona officials are outraged over plans to construct a 300-metre "space hotel" - complete with a zero-gravity spa and vertical wind tunnel - on an artificial island off the coast of the city.

Aimed at guests who "wish they could travel to distant galaxies", the €1.5 billion hotel designed by Spanish architect Erik Morvan would offer over 2,000 hotel suites and residences alongside a 24-hour "space mall" and a marina filled with parks, pools and beaches. Windows would feature transparent glass displays of the galaxy, which guests could turn on and off at the touch of the button.

US developer Mobilona submitted a request for planning permission to Barcelona City Hall last week, but city mayor Xavier Trias has already voiced objections. "We have no intention of turning Barcelona into a spectacle," he told Catalan news channel 3/24.

Describing the plans as "not in keeping" with his vision of the city, Trias commented: "We have no need or desire to take on projects of this nature. We are a city of culture, knowledge, of creativity, and of innovation, and our project [to develop the city] will follow a different path."

A representative from the Barcelona planning department also told the Telegraph newspaper: "This seems more suitable for somewhere like Dubai. Any plan to advance Barcelona must be in keeping with the present model of the city."

Mobilona's CEO Jerome Bottari is confident that the space hotel concept will be popular and has already unveiled plans for similar projects in Hong Kong and Los Angeles. "Mobilona creates the perfect blend of design and technology to simulate any place on earth, or in the universe," he said. "Immersive displays inside Mobilona Space Hotel on Barcelona Island will provide guests with stunning views of some of the most remote galaxies in our universe."

If plans go ahead, the building will become the tallest hotel in Europe.

Other controversial hotel designs from recent months include plans to build the world's largest underwater hotel in Dubai and a boutique hotel in a converted prison in the Netherlands.

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"turn Barcelona into a spectacle" appeared first on Dezeen.

This house by Spanish architect Daniel Isern looks like a cluster of concrete cubes, stacked up on a steep hillside on the outskirts of Barcelona.

The rural site faces out towards the coast, so Daniel Isern designed the four-storey residence with balconies and terraces on three of its floors, as well as a pair of glazed sunrooms.

The form of the building comprises overlapping volumes that integrate several cantilevers. Isern explains: "The reduced dimensions of the plot and the desire to leave the minimum imprint on the land led us to seek out a floor plan which, matching the trees that surround it, emerges from a trunk well anchored to the land and opens up in branches on each floor."

The entrance to the house is on the uppermost floor. There are no rooms at this level, so residents work their way downstairs to find a living room and bedroom on the next level down, a dining room below that and a master bedroom on the bottom floor.

A concrete walls extends out from the north and south sides of the house and integrates a storage area for firewood.

Other concrete houses from Spain to feature on Dezeen include a stark building with richly stained timber shutters and an X-shaped house that hangs over a hillside. See more houses in Spain.

Photography is by Adrià Goula.

Here's a statement from Daniel Isern:

Mediterrani 32, Sant Pol de Mar 2012

"For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value." Claude Monet.

The project for this house emerged from a very simple premise, to build on a very steep piece of land with a gradient of almost 100%, boasting wonderful views and on a tight budget. It was this highly complicated plot of land, surrounded by pine trees, that defined a good part of this project. The land, and its perspectives, constantly changing as the hours pass, the colour of the trees, the movement of sun and shadows...

On the one hand, the reduced dimensions of the plot and its complex orography, and on the other the desire to leave the minimum imprint on the land led us to seek out a floorplan which, matching the trees that surround it, emerges from a trunk well anchored to the land and opens up in braches on each floor, in such a way that each branch becomes the terrace of the upper level at the same time as it becomes the porch of the lower one.

All this helps create a very formal building, with huge cantilevers facing out to emptiness, the woods and the sea which lie before it. A structure which opens up to these views and the sun, and which thanks to the terraces and the porches confuse the interior with the exterior. A building which is equally formal in both its volume and the materials which compose it. Concrete, iron, timber and stone combining in a way that emphasises the character of each one. In the end, the whole building represents a dialogue between emptiness and fullness, between materials, between outside and inside; seeking out a balance between these highly contrasting parts.

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by Daniel Isern appeared first on Dezeen.

The seven-storey Museu del Disseny de Barcelona is located on the edge of Plaça de les Glories, next door to Jean Nouvel's Torre Agbar office tower. Due to the level changes across the site, the building has part of its volume buried beneath the ground and has public entrances on two of its floors.

MBM Arquitectes divided the form of the building into two halves. The bottom section is a bulky volume with glazed walls and a grass roof, while the upper section is a top-heavy structure clad with pre-weathered aluminium panels on every side.

Set to open in spring 2014, the museum will combine the decorative arts, ceramics, textiles and graphic design collections of four existing museums, which have now closed their doors.

The main exhibition hall will be housed in the lower part of the building, while additional exhibitions will take place in galleries on the museum's upper floors. Other facilities include a large auditorium, a small hall, a public library, education rooms and a bar and cafe.

The area surrounding the museum has been made into a lake, while the grass roof serves as a new public lawn overlooking the water.

The Design Museum in London is also moving to a new home, as British architect John Pawson is developing the former Commonwealth Institute building.

See more recent architecture in Barcelona, including a modular office block by Arata Isozaki and student housing at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

Photography is by Iñigo Bujedo Aguirre.

Here's some more information from DHUB:

The building is the work of MBM Arquitectes, the architecture studio formed by Josep Martorell, Oriol Bohigas and David Mackay, together with Oriol Capdevila and Francesc Gual. The edifice is made up of two parts: one underground (which takes advantage of the slope created by urban development of the plaza) and another which emerges at 14.5 m (at the level of Plaça de les Glòries).

Construction below the height of 14.5m: Most of the surface area of the building is situated below the 14.5m level and is where the more significant installations are housed. They are distributed over two floors and a gallery, and include the main exhibition hall, rooms given over to management and preservation of the DHUB's collections, the main offices, Clot public library, the documentation centre (DHUBdoc) and rooms for research and educational activities, in addition to high-traffic services such as the bar, restaurant and store. Though below ground level, the basement floor receives natural light from a trench which is worked into the different ground levels and which features a huge lake, creating a dialogue with the outside. Lighting is reinforced with six skylights that look out over the public space and can also be used as showcases for the centre's contents and activities.

Construction above the height of 14.5m: This part of the building projects over the width of Carrer d'Àvila and has the shape of a slanted parallelepiped. In accordance with the general urban plan it occupies a minimum footprint, primarily in order not to reduce the space earmarked for public use, but also because the vicissitudes of plans to demolish the elevated road and change the tramline route severely limit the space available. The building cantilevers out towards the plaça, enabling the construction potential to be met while at the same time establishing a display of urban architecture over the motorway. This block will house the venues for long- and short-term temporary exhibitions, as well as a small hall and a large auditorium.

Entrance to both parts or bodies that compose the DHUB headquarters is gained through a single vestibule with two points of access: one in Carrer d'Àvila and another in Plaça de les Glòries. Passage through this part of the building is almost inevitable, as it forms a kind of corridor connecting Plaça de les Glòries, the 22@ technological district and Poblenou.

All of the services situated in the basement area can be reached from this semi-public plaza, as well as those on the upper floors by means of a system of escalators, staircases and lifts. While the different spaces have diverse dimensions and architectural characteristics, overall they form a conceptual whole in which the auditorium stands aloft as a fundamental and crowning feature.

Only two materials are used in the building's exterior, zinc plates and glass, bestowing an industrial feel with metallic accents on the building. The green carpet of the artificial flooring and bright graphics on the pavement are two of the primary components of the outside surfaces. In both cases, the elements employed (natural and manufactured) ensure sustainability and ease of maintenance. The lake, in addition to visually highlighting the work, creates a link between the different levels.

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by MBM Arquitectes appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen archive: We've featured a few interesting apartments in Barcelona recently, so here's a round-up of architecture and design from the Catalan capital. See all the stories »

See all our archive stories »

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Located inside a 100-year-old building, the apartment had been kept in bad condition but the original floors and ceilings were still intact, so Bach Arquitectes planned the refurbishment around them.

The room layout matches the original plan, so the colourful tiled floors still line up with the walls. However one wall is removed to convert two former bedrooms into a combined living and dining room.

The architects swapped the kitchen and bathroom, creating an ensuite for the main bedroom.

The floor in the new bathroom is raised by 60 centimetres to squeeze a bath in underneath the shower. Three steps lead in from the bedroom.

Shelves added to the hallway form a makeshift library with a long bench running along underneath.

Furnishings were also planned by the architects, but include various items from the client's former home.

"We understand the furnishing of a house as a long-term process," Eugeni Bach told Dezeen. "The design of the home should be open enough to accept these new elements, furniture, objects, books. On the other hand we usually design some elements to allow these things to be collected and placed well in the house."

Bach also explained how they chose a few pieces, including the art on the living room walls: "We suggested a couple of pieces, like the Bouroullec lounge chair in the living room, the 14 Gordon Matta-Clark prints on the living room wall and the Kuutti Lavonen 'Barabbas' lito-offset," he said.

Above: layout diagram - click for larger image

The apartment was completed in 2011 and is located in Barcelona's Ensanche district.

Above: floor plans - click for larger image and key

We've featured a few Barcelona apartments in recent months. Others include one where mosaic floors reveal changes to the layout and one with sliding partitions and bright green surfaces. See more apartment interiors on Dezeen.

Above: detailed section through new bathroom

Other projects by Bach Arquitectes include a children's playhouse in Finland.

Photography is by Tiia Ettala.

Here's a project description from Bach Arquitectes:

Apartment Refurbishment in Consell de Cent, Barcelona

This project changes the manner of inhabiting a flat in Barcelona's Ensanche district through small and very specific operations that make the most of every corner as if dealing with a jigsaw puzzle and giving over the protagonist role to the existing elements, conserving, reusing or modifying them in order to create new spaces that seem to always have been like this.

The project consisted of the integral reforms of a dwelling in Barcelona's Ensanche district that dates from the year 1910 and had never undergone any substantial modification in its 100 years of history. The state of the flat, however, was deplorable, as its previous occupier suffered form compulsive hoarding syndrome and had accumulated all kinds of waste, leaving many of its elements in very poor condition. The ceilings (with magnificent rosettes and mouldings) and the floors (hydraulic paving made from small ceramic pieces) had been conserved relatively well, as was the case with some of the original joinery.

The starting point therefore consisted of conserving a layout that would permit the suite comprising the magnificent existing ceilings and floors to be maintained, concentrating any necessary changes required by the new programme on the spaces that did not possess such characteristics.

In order to meet this objective the work was done room by room in an attempt in each case to adapt the new programme to the rooms defined by ceilings and floors, recessing wardrobes or shifting partitions without modifying the limit of the rooms so that they would gain in functionality without losing their original limits. All the joinery has been conserved in either its original position or by shifting it to new rooms opened up in the flat's "interior" volume, always respecting the original position of the floors and windows giving on the patio.

The generous height of this flat has been made use of to raise the floor of the en-suite bathroom by 60 cm, making room in a single space for the bath underneath the shower as well as a very useful storeroom-pantry underneath the floor, accessible from the corridor and next to the kitchen. This raising of the bathroom also means that in order to access it three steps have to be climbed from the bedroom, giving the flat a greater feeling of "domesticity" by introducing an element that is more typical of a detached family house than of a single-story flat.

A characteristic space of this reform is the long internal corridor, quite common on this dwelling typology of Barcelona's Ensanche. This space had an ideal width for converting it not only into a transit space but also into something more, in such a way that with a few simple shelves that stretch the full length of the corridor and with a few low units of the same length the corridor space has been transformed into an ample library and a place for storage.

A few Ikea tabletop lamps hanging upside-down from the ceiling contribute to giving the space a surrealist touch while providing a very pleasant specific light.

Architect: Anna & Eugeni Bach, arquitectes
Completion date: 2011
Built surface: 130 m2
Constructor: Petropolis, S.L.
Site: c/ Consell de Cent, 423, Barcelona

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by Bach Arquitectes appeared first on Dezeen.