We return to Carabanchel (at the intersection between Clarinetes Street and Trompas Street) and today we are going to look at a modern work. A social housing building designed by architect Alejandro Zaera Polo. A building with 88 homes and built by Foreign Office Architects (FOA), the architecture studio created by Zaera together with his wife, the British architect of Iranian origin. Farshid Moussavi.

Is Bamboo building, a long and narrow parallelepiped, not very tall, that occupies one side of a square block and leaves the rest free for a large patio-garden for the community. The keys were handed over in August 2007.

The most characteristic thing about the building and what gives it its name is the enormous bamboo lattice that completely surrounds the entire complex. This coating gives it a highly original appearance, nothing to do with the exposed brick constructions so common in those 2000s, those years of urban development that seemed to want to fill every free corner with homes. But the important thing is not its aesthetics, bamboo allows the control of the sun's rays and provides the building with considerable thermal, acoustic and visual insulation, protecting it from rain and wind in winter and high temperatures in summer. Each neighbor can open or close at will, giving it an organic, living, changing appearance.

In 2008, he was awarded one of the awards for excellence in architecture awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).USURY He explained that his decision was due “the strength of its concepts and the rawness of its execution”.

There was no shortage of controversy, a construction that not everyone liked equally, but without a doubt different, brave, an innovative concept from the simplicity of the project.

Not far away is the Pinar de San José, If you pass by, without a doubt, we recommend that you stop to enjoy it.

A abrazo.