27 Apartments In Salou / NUA Arquitectures

Architects: NUA Arquitectures
Area: 1,670 m²
Year: 2023
Photography: Jose Hevia
Lead Architect: Arnau Tiñena, Maria Rius, Ferran Tiñena
Technical Architect: Albert Vilà and Júlia Oriol
Project Team: Alfons Güell, Paula Roch, Àngels Cañellas, Alba Azábal
Structural Consultant: Windmill Structural Consultants
Facilities and Sustainability: Garriga Enginyers
Acoustics Engineer: David Casadevall
Landscaping: Parcs i jardins Aspros
Construction: STM Construccions
City: Salou
Country: Spain

The 27 Apartments project, designed by NUA Arquitectures in Salou, Spain, reimagines a coastal building as a slow-living residential space that honors Salou’s historical identity as a spa and tourist destination. Emphasizing sustainable renovation, the project preserves the building’s original structure to reduce environmental impact, creating seasonal, climate-adapted housing inspired by early 20th-century Mediterranean architecture.

27 apartments in salou / nua arquitectures

The natural harbor of Salauris has historically served strategic roles on the Mediterranean, from military and commercial uses to a popular tourist destination since the late 20th century, with roots dating back to the Iberians and Romans.

Salou remained a fishing village until the 19th century, when the emerging industrial bourgeoisie of Reus and the construction of a railway brought its first tourists. This gradual transformation introduced health and wellness tourism, and early 20th-century Art Nouveau homes along the seafront reflect this era, with rooms available to those seeking the therapeutic effects of seawater.

For five decades, Salou grew modestly along its coastline, shaping a garden city centered on spa tourism. However, beginning in the 1960s, Salou experienced significant growth as part of the Costa Dorada’s tourism boom, giving rise to a diverse urban landscape of hotels, apartments, and restaurants alongside traditional residential buildings.

The project is based on one such isolated building near the seafront, originally conceived as a residence on a podium. Later modified with additional floors, it housed a nursing home from the early 2000s but was abandoned for 13 years, resulting in deterioration and social issues in its vicinity.

With sixty years since Salou’s tourism surge, the project reconsiders temporary housing and tourism’s role in addressing today’s social and environmental challenges.

The renovation prioritizes reusing existing architecture, reducing demolition costs, environmental impact, and carbon footprint by avoiding waste generation and excessive energy use. This approach seeks an alternative to the mass tourism model by echoing early 20th-century hotel residences, offering a slower, more local lifestyle rooted in the area’s architectural heritage.

Unlike the common housing model shaped around summer tourism, these new apartments are intended as welcoming, year-round living spaces grounded in local culture. Both the building and apartments are designed to meet habitability standards for a potential future as permanent residences.

The building’s transformation involves four core strategies: Consolidate and Reorganize addresses functionality and structural stability, with reinforced wall structures and floor slabs. The floors were reconfigured with a new staircase and two elevators forming a central core for optimized flow, allowing perimeter room layouts.

Ordering and Linking redefines the building’s interaction with its surroundings, including the removal of the existing attic and creation of a rooftop terrace. Redesigned façades add windows for improved light and ventilation, while the ground floor is opened to connect reception, restaurant, and garden areas, creating terraces for ground-floor apartments.

Isolate and Contextualize focuses on energy efficiency and identity. A new thermal skin insulates the building, optimizing energy use while visually connecting it to early 20th-century Art Nouveau homes through ceramic materials.

Open and Naturalize reimagines exterior spaces, replacing the paved terrace with a Mediterranean garden designed for low maintenance and water needs, reducing the heat island effect and improving natural drainage. This garden integrates with public space, offering accessibility with a new ramp and transforming the exterior into a welcoming green space.

Programmatically, the building includes collective, technical, and service spaces on the ground floor, with six apartment types across floors. The flats are designed for optimal sunlight, double orientation, and cross-ventilation, each with cooking, resting, and washing areas.

The project’s exclusive use of ceramics in two finishes—natural and bottle-green enamel—establishes a cohesive material identity, connecting the facade to Salou’s Art Nouveau summer houses while meeting technical, aesthetic, and symbolic goals. This single material choice brings unity across the project’s design.