The work we have carried out in various intermediate-sized cities has led us to reflect on the evolution of garden cities in Catalonia. The loss of the collective public space proposed by Howard in the English garden city model prompted us to experiment with the ‘Gardenhouse’ series, which seeks to uncover new relationships between architecture and the garden. This research explores how to foster more intense connections between people and the environment.
The architectural route through Sant Cugat del Vallès covers 14 houses located within a garden city setting. This urban model emerged as a response to the dense, industrialised city: a form of urban development that sought to recover an ideal balance between city and nature. It is, however, also a dispersed and low-density urban response —less sustainable in territorial terms— that occupies land in pursuit of healthier and more comfortable housing solutions.
This selection of dwellings within the municipality of Sant Cugat can be understood as a catalogue of different ways of positioning a building on its plot and relating it to the garden. Each house displays its own volumetric composition and materiality, reflecting diverse architectural strategies for integration into the green environment: garden houses. Although most of the examples on this route are single-family homes, projects have also been included in which the relationship with greenery and the garden is explored through multi-family housing: garden apartments.
The authorship of these projects is diverse and includes prominent figures in Catalan architecture, from H Arquitectes and Tonet Sunyer to Lluís Clotet and Coderch, among others.
