The secret garden of Jose Luis Romany. The Programmed Settlement of Fuencarral (Madrid)

Abstract

Nature plays a prominent role in Fuencarral's Programmed Settlement, enriching the remarkable architecture conceived by José Luis Romany in 1956. The neighborhood, designed by the architect at the beginning of his professional career, reflects well his vital moment, by combining the sensitivity developed when he studied in situ the gardens of Granada, with the rationality, the economy or the constructive precision of the social housing projects developed  with the design team of Hogar del Empleado building company (CBHE). The conception of the neighborhood, fundamentally a pedestrian island with single-family houses inside, surrounded by a sinuous perimeter road around which the linear blocks of houses are arranged, led to working on two different scales in the use of vegetation. The patios of the single-family houses established a spatial continuity between interior and exterior, made easier the adaptation of the new neighbors from rural world to urban world and facilitated the transition with the space of the street and its appropriation, in the Mediterranean way. The trees of the neighborhood not only fulfilled a landscaping work, but also “instrumental”, optimizing the energy balance of the block housing. Pavements and stone retaining walls helped to single out the public space and enrich the neighborhood's great vegetal heritage, an urban nature whose lessons are still valid.