Rehabilitating the “great facade” of the city: The renovation of the facades of high-rise residential buildings as an urban and landscape strategy in contemporary cities
Aesthetic, energetic and social rehabilitation from a European perspective
Spanish cities are largely made up of large groups of high-rise residential buildings built during the second half of the 20th century, especially between the 1960s and 1980s. These buildings, mainly intended for collective housing, today present a triple problem: aesthetic obsolescence, progressive construction deterioration and a high visual and landscape impact on large urban areas. Its presence is decisive in metropolitan crowns, consolidated peripheral neighborhoods, urban accesses and infrastructural fronts, becoming a “continuous façade” of the contemporary city.
Historically, no solution has been provided to this problem. Through this article, the comprehensive renovation of facades is defended as a structural urban strategy, capable of transforming the built landscape, improving energy efficiency, increasing the spatial quality of homes and reinforcing social cohesion without resorting to the displacement of the resident population.
Cité du Grand Parc in Bordeaux, which transformed the façade of 530 social housing units, constitutes a paradigm of comprehensive renovation of high-rise buildings with high visual impact (Lacaton & Vassal, Druot & Hutin, 2017).
The facade as an urban problem and as an opportunity:
The façade of high-rise residential buildings concentrates multiple deficits accumulated over time. From a technical point of view, pathologies derived from obsolete construction systems, inefficient enclosures, poor carpentry, lack of thermal and acoustic insulation, and degraded security elements are common. At an environmental level, these buildings usually present energy performance well below current standards, contributing significantly to urban energy consumption (Ministerio de Transportes, Movilidad y Agenda Urbana [MITMA], 2022).
However, the most visible impact is the landscape and symbolic one. These facades configure large repetitive, homogeneous and degraded urban backgrounds, whose image conditions the collective perception of entire neighborhoods and, in many cases, of the city itself. In this sense, the rehabilitation of facades should not be understood as a merely technical or cosmetic operation, but as a first-rate architectural and urban intervention, capable of redefining the relationship between housing, city and landscape.
Illescas 81 (Aluche) and Juan Hurtado de Mendoza 14 (Chamartín), 2 nondescript old skyscrapers in Madrid that reach 53.36 meters in height (photo: composition with own captures in Google Maps Street View).
Lacaton & Vassal. Transform without demolishing:
One of the fundamental references in the European field of the rehabilitation of high-rise collective housing is the work of the French studio Lacaton & Vassal, especially in collaboration with Frédéric Druot and Christophe Hutin. Its intervention in the Cité du Grand Parc in Bordeaux, which transformed 530 social housing units into three residential towers, constitutes a paradigm of comprehensive renovation without demolition (Lacaton & Vassal, Druot & Hutin, 2017).
This project, awarded the European Union Contemporary Architecture Prize – Mies van der Rohe 2019, proposes a radically different strategy to traditional rehabilitation operations. Instead of limiting themselves to repairing or isolating the existing envelope, the architects choose to expand the homes by incorporating winter gardens and balconies along the entire length of the façade, generating a new habitable and climatic layer (European Commission & Fundació Mies van der Rohe, 2019).
The intervention substantially improves energy efficiency, increases the useful surface area of the homes, introduces greater lighting and spatial quality and profoundly transforms the urban image of the complex, all while keeping the inhabitants in their homes during the process. As Arquitectura Viva points out (Lacaton & Vassal. Transform without demolishing. Arquitectura Viva, 215. 2019), the resulting aesthetic is not an end in itself, but the direct consequence of a real improvement in living conditions.
Cité du Grand Parc in Bordeaux, which transformed the façade of 530 social housing units, constitutes a paradigm of comprehensive renovation of high-rise buildings with high visual impact (Lacaton & Vassal, Druot & Hutin, 2017).
Other European examples. The recognition of Mies van der Rohe Prize:
The line of action defended by Lacaton & Vassal is not an isolated case, but is part of a broader European trend of transformative rehabilitation. A notable example is the renovation of the DeFlat Kleiburg in Amsterdam, winner of the 2017 Mies van der Rohe Award (NL Architects & XVW Architectuur, 2016). This project recovers a huge collective housing block in the Bijlmermeer neighborhood through a strategy that combines the rehabilitation of the structure and facades with an innovative economic and participatory model.
Both cases demonstrate that intervention on high-rise buildings can reach a significant urban scale, acting simultaneously on efficiency, habitability and landscape, and being recognized as high-quality architecture in the European context.
Towards a strategy for Spanish cities:
The extrapolation of these models to the Spanish context requires specific reflection on the property structure, the regulatory framework and climate diversity. However, a series of general principles can be established:
-Intervene in urban complexes, not in isolated buildings, understanding the façade as a continuous element of the landscape.
-Make energy rehabilitation and spatial improvement compatible, overcoming the logic of simple isolation.
-Industrialize façade solutions, reducing costs, deadlines and uncertainties.
-Avoid the displacement of the population, prioritizing works with inhabited buildings.
-Understanding the façade as an urban common good, susceptible to coordinated public policies and structural financing.
In this sense, the renovation of high-rise facades can become one of the most effective instruments to move towards more sustainable, inclusive and visually coherent cities.
The rehabilitation of the facades of high-rise residential buildings constitutes one of the great pending opportunities of the contemporary Spanish city. Far from being a secondary operation, it is an intervention capable of simultaneously transforming the urban landscape, energy efficiency and quality of life of thousands of homes.
European examples, especially the projects of Lacaton & Vassal in France and the interventions recognized by the Mies van der Rohe Prize, demonstrate that it is possible to transform without demolishing, improve without expelling and renew without trivializing. The adoption of these strategies would make it possible to convert a problem inherited from 20th century urban planning into an active lever of urban and architectural regeneration in the 21st century.
Bibliography:
-Arquitectura Viva. (2019). Lacaton & Vassal. Transformar sin demoler. Arquitectura Viva, 215.
-European Commission & Fundació Mies van der Rohe. (2019). EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2019. Publications Office of the European Union.
-Lacaton, A., & Vassal, J.-P., Druot, F., & Hutin, C. (2017). Transformation of housing blocks. Paris: Éditions B2.
-Ministerio de Transportes, Movilidad y Agenda Urbana. (2022). Estrategia a largo plazo para la rehabilitación energética en el sector de la edificación en España. Gobierno de España.
-NL Architects & XVW Architectuur. (2016). DeFlat Kleiburg. Amsterdam.
-The Pritzker Architecture Prize. (2021). Lacaton & Vassal – Laureates.
