This 70 square meter penthouse is located in Valencia (Spain), and it was designed by Josep Ruà.
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Tag: Valencia
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Architecture: House El Bosque by Ramón Esteve
Ramón Esteve, whose studio is based in Valencia city, designed this residence for a site in nearby Chiva (Valencia province).
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Balint House by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos in Bétera (Valencia)
Spanish studio Fran Silvestre Arquitectos designed Balint House for a site beside a golf course in the municipality of Bétera (Valencia).
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Four-bedroom house in Spain ‘sold’ in €10 raffle
This four-bedroom house in rural Valencia was given to its newest owner after winning a raffle.
When the previous owners, the Bolumar family, first wanted to sell the house they had inherited two years ago in Segorbe, a town of 9,300, they tried to do it the traditional way, listing it for €90,000. But the struggling Spanish housing market yielded few potential buyers.
The family began considering other ways to sell. Most ideas were dismissed quickly, save one. “Raffling it off seemed interesting – people would have the chance to acquire a home for a low cost and we would still end up covering the cost,” Bolumar said.
From there began a year-long project, with the family wrestling their way through seemingly endless amounts of red tape to obtain authorisation from the country’s tax authorities to be the first in Spain to raffle off a house.
The €10 tickets, sold from a kiosk in Valencia as well as online, offered the chance to win the 141 sq metre home, no strings attached.
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Madrid and Valencia: potential property hotspots for 2015
Valencia and Madrid have been named as potential property investment hotspots for 2015 as the country’s property market continues its recovery.
Madrid is currently undergoing a revival following a rocky ride during the last seven years and Valencia’s position as a key tourist destination mark them out.
In Madrid official figures show that sales were up 17% in 2014 over 2013 and the city and surrounding region have seen their first property price rises since 2007.
It adds that as well as being popular with overseas visitors Valencia is a business and investment hub. Latest figures suggest that the number of property sales in Valencia has increased by as much as 30% compared to 2013 figures.
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Spanish Team Wins UN Prize for Plans to Create Solutions for Mass Housing
A project designed by two Spanish architects has won a UN competition to create sustainable solutions for mass urban housing. Recooperation, presented by María García and Gonzalo Navarrete of architectural firm Improvistos is a project to revitalize the run-down Orba neighbourhood in Alfafar, in the southern outskirts of Valencia (Spain), which was built in the 1960s to house the families of workers employed in a nearby timber plant that has since closed, prompting an exodus from the area.
Orba’s housing stock is made up of just two types of low-quality, identical 70- and 90-square-meter apartments in blocks laid out on a grid system, originally designed to house around 6,000 people.
Improvisto’s project is based on the principle of cohousing, an approach that is popular in Scandinavia, where communities consist of private homes with shared facilities, and where residents play an active role in how the community is designed and managed.
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Spanish architect Calatrava wins lawsuit over a degrading website
A judge in Valencia has ordered a political party to pay €30,000 (£24,400) in damages to the celebrated architect Santiago Calatrava over a website its members created to highlight the flaws and cost overruns in various projects he designed.
Calatrava took the Valencia branch of the leftwing party Esquerra Unida to court, demanding €600,000 in compensation over their website 'Calatravatelaclava', which loosely translates as "Calatrava bleeds you dry."
The party founded the site in 2012 to take aim at the City of Arts and Sciences, an ambitious project meant to put Valencia on the map as a tourist destination. It said that from an original budget of €300m, the cost of the dazzling complex – which includes a concert hall, opera house, planetarium and science museum among its many features – swelled to more than €1bn by the time it was completed in 2005.
Calatrava, a native of Valencia, billed the government nearly €100m for the project, it added.
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Calatrava’s Opera House in Valencia and its Façade Problem
The performing arts center and opera house of Valencia was designed by the prominent architect Santiago Calatrava, who also created New York's World Trade Center Transportation Hub, scheduled to open in 2015, as well as many other international projects. His work is known for its airy, curved designs 
that suggest a symbiosis between architecture and sculpture. It has also proven controversial in recent years because of ballooning budgets and technical glitches.
The Palau, which cost 478 million euros to build, opened eight years ago. A recent analysis by the Construction Technology Institute (Aidico) concluded that there is a "generalized failure of the ceramic covering's adherence" on 60 percent of the surface. The Valencian government commissioned this report after a section of the mosaic fell off on December 26, forcing the opera house to shut down and cancel performances.
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Theatre in Xàtiva, Valencia, Spain by Arquitectos Ayala
When the people form Arquitectos Ayala decided to enter the competition to design the new public theatre in Xàtiva (Valencia), Spain, they ascended the nearby Mont Sant near the old fortress to get a better view of the site.
There, they could see how the avenue Alameda divided the old town from the new, and also marked a significant shift in levels and building heights of around 6m. They knew at that moment that the successful scheme would have to negotiate these level differences and integrate both the old and new towns.
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