Actar: In the Barcelona's Eixample district all buildings built around 1900 had the same functional organization – shops on the ground floor with warehouses or workshops extending towards the center of the block, and big flats (at least 100 sqm) above. The LV building is exceptional in its program and in the organization of public space. According to your experience, is this urban grid sufficiently flexible to accommodate these changes, and do you think that the LV project exemplifies a need to alter the former uniformity of the grid?
Coll-Leclerc: The LV building is a social mixed-use complex not regulated by standard urban regulations (only housing blocks are) so it was an opportunity to redefine the urban parameters, to organize a program in terms of the user more that in terms of abstract parameters. The grid has always been flexible, depending on the existing regulations. It is a grid that accommodates accidents and mistakes (passages, insertions, fractures, discontinuities…) as something normal.
 
The apartments in this project are relatively small, but the public / common spaces are relatively big. How did you evaluate the relationship between space for individual residents and for public use? 
The bigger building contains apartments for young people, with services similar to a student residence (including laundry and a multifunctional space). Most of the public space however is part of the school, namely the courtyard which is simultaneously used as a public park.
 
The budget for this building was presumably very low. How did this economy translate into the choice of structural systems, materials, and color scheme?
The structure is steel for lightness (a swimming pool was originally planned under the building) and speed of construction. Floor is terrazzo, medium grain (the old type, meaning the cheapest), catwalks are industrial galvanized steel pieces, hvac is exposed…But the economy is more in the flexibility of the appartament.
We translate Andy Warhol's sentence “To be really rich, i believe, is to have one space. One big empty space...I believe that everyone should live in one big empty space. It can be a small space, as long as it’s clean and empty.”
 
A lawsuit initiated by neighboring residents determined that the building had to be demolished and replaced by a park. Could you share any news on this crazy decision?
A redefinition of the users (students?, aged people?) is under study as a possibility to fit the original zoning regulation that allowed for social facilities only. The court argued that this project was more about housing in a place for facilities than a facility complex in itself. It is a legal misunderstanding that is very difficult to resolve.

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