Two entrances level with the pavement, a services ceiling that conceals the drainage stacks of the flats above, and a façade that reads from the street. The starting point was a bare shell unit on the ground floor of a residential building in Teatinos, with two street frontages and the stacks running across its ceiling. The brief: turn it into a business incubator in Teatinos, Málaga, recognisable from the pavement and accessible at street level. 68.55 m² built and three months on site.
The brief: a public facility inside a housing block
The unit is municipally owned and was made available under a use agreement to the city’s economic development company, to join its network of business incubators. The host building is a block of state-subsidised housing. In other words: a public facility set into a lived-in residential block, with the obligation not to touch anything above the ground floor. The applicable planning framework is Málaga’s 2011 general plan (PGOU), the perimeter-block ordinance (Manzana Cerrada), sheet PAM T.3 (83).
We started from 68.55 m² built and 60.21 m² of usable floor area. The built area does not change at any point in the project, because the envelope is left untouched, and the usable area ends up certified at 51.59 m². That 8.6 m² difference goes into the thickness of the new wall linings and partitions. In a unit this size, every construction decision is paid for in usable square metres.
The decisions that shape the unit
The scheme drawn up for the building permit (licencia de obras) in October 2019 included a ramp. In the accessibility addendum that same month, the door of one of the entrances was repositioned and the ramp disappeared. Both entrances now sit level with the street on Calle Charles Dickens. Less work and a cleaner façade, solved by moving an opening on plan.
Drainage was the other sticking point. There was no way out at the existing floor level, so the floor was raised on a ventilated suspended slab over lightweight dwarf walls and the drainage was run underneath. The remaining headroom was used for a continuous suspended ceiling that conceals the stacks and services of the flats above. No structural element of the building is touched: it is a surgical operation on the ground floor.
Four versions and a scope review
Between the permit design and the start of works there were four versions of the basic and construction design: October 2019, April 2020 and two in June 2020. The last was a full review to simplify the scheme, with a comparison of quantities, worked through point by point with the client.
A public works contract does not forgive improvisation: tender, monthly progress valuations and final acceptance. Redesigning on paper before going out to tender is far simpler than redesigning on site with the contractor already in. That review phase, which looks bad on the programme, is what held the project together afterwards.
The works
The setting-out was verified and recorded on 16 September 2020, and the works were completed on 16 December: three months, against the six allowed by the building permit. The contractor was EMIN S.L., with weekly site visit minutes from the first day through to 9 December.
The façade image was settled on site. The elevation proposal and the choice of colours date from 19 November 2020; the sign was finalised on 11 December, five days before completion. The works were accepted with reservations, followed by a certificate confirming that the defects had been remedied. The final certificate is dated 29 December 2020, and the energy performance certificates were issued afterwards.
If you have a ground-floor unit that has to work as a public facility and explain itself from the street, talk to us at Klic Arquitectos.
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Project data
- Typology: Renovation of a ground-floor unit in an existing residential building for a public tertiary-sector facility
- Use: Commercial / business (productive) use
- Location: Calle Doctor Miguel Díaz Recio and Calle Charles Dickens, Teatinos, Málaga
- Design year: 2018-2020
- Construction year: 2020
- Status: Built and completed (December 2020)
- Built area: 68.55 m² (unchanged from the previous state: the envelope is not altered)
- Usable floor area: 51.59 m² certified
- Construction period: 3 months (16/09/2020 – 16/12/2020), against the 6 months allowed by the building permit
- Client: Public administration: municipal company for economic development and entrepreneurship. Municipally owned unit made available under a use agreement
- Building contractor: EMIN S.L. (Emin Obras y Servicios), Málaga
- Site management (dirección de obra): Klic Arquitectos: Juan Goñi Uriarte and Ruth Buján Varela
- MEP engineering: Drawn up within the project by Klic Arquitectos (drainage, plumbing, electrical, telecoms, ventilation, air conditioning and fire safety)
- Structure: No intervention in the existing structure. New ventilated suspended slab over lightweight dwarf walls to run the drainage underneath
- Interior design: Defined through the project itself and Klic Arquitectos’ site management
- Photography: Renders and site photographs by the studio
- Klic services: Basic and construction design, site management, basic health and safety study, health and safety coordination during construction, and energy performance certification
- Team: Juan Goñi Uriarte, architect (COA Málaga member no. 1206), and Ruth Buján Varela, architect (COA Málaga member no. 1333)
- Planning framework: Málaga 2011 general plan (PGOU), Manzana Cerrada perimeter-block ordinance, sheet PAM T.3 (83)
