Vegaviana

Housing (5) Vegaviana

I’ve already talked about Vegaviana in a series of posts about food and urbanism. Last week I visited the place and saw again the qualities of the project: even if these homes would not receive today a prize to modernist hype, they show well how to articulate single family housing in a way that is more sustainable than many common subdivisions. The fact that these were homes built after a war, with scarce means, has led to limited paving and an economy of elements (sustainability is sometimes the result of having no other choice), and the commons between the homes are an interesting space, with few formal elements. These homes will probably need some refurbishing, but the frame is clearly good. Lots are around 300 sq m, with homes totalizing some 80-90 sq m and the ancillary buildings developed since then some 200

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Urban planning and food (9) Vegaviana

Vegaviana is from 2009 a municipality in the province of Cáceres, in Spain. The settlement was created in 1954 as a new planned agrarian settlement, as a part of the internal colonization movement developed under the Franco Regime; large irrigation projects (in this case, linked to the Borbollón reservoir) were linked to these new agrarian towns. In 1961 there were 3.131 colonists, but today population is 863, as the area is subject to the same demographic trends that mark most of rural Spain.

The architectural project, by Fernandez del Amo, was awarded, and as in most of these colonization settlements the humble architecture is well integrated in the landscape. It is usually the opposite to a golf course, as here productive land must be preserved as the reason for the urban tissue.

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