The old Residential San Mateo was one of the most emblematic buildings of the city of Lorca for its special conception with an open central space to Juan Carlos I Avenue. In July 2011, the construction was completely demolished due to the earthquake of 11 May.

In October 2011, the Residential Owners' Association issued a call of design proposals to select the most suitable project for the reconstruction of their houses. In the terms of the competition, the projects design was made conditional on compliance with the ownership structure of the original construction, so that each owner could recover the position that had previously occupied within the building as a whole.

The proposal presented by MCEA | ARCHITECTURE and NAOS 04 ARCHITECTS placed the architectural project as the instrument to achieve the necessary consensus among all building owners to become the reconstruction feasible. For this purpose, it was considered as essential to incorporate in the project process the experiences and different ways of living that the residents of the community developed over time, in order to ensure as smooth as possible the reconstruction and occupation process of the new housing.

The owners were also given the possibility of incorporating their current and future requirements into the project by designing flexible schemes that allowed, in a large number of cases, a single housing or two smaller ones.

Each and every owner individually was incorporated in the design team, taking part of this participatory process, which consisted mainly of the following stages of work:

1- In an initial phase, the individual requirements of each owner were defined by completing data sheets in which they reflect all those comments and proposals that they consider appropriate.

2- In the second phase, a design process of housing typologies was started, in order to make compatible all the distribution proposals received in the first phase.

3.- A third phase of work was developed then, in which the different typologies defined in the vertical of their home were given to each owner so that they could select the suitable one according their needs and finally introduce the occasional changes they considered.

The final result of this participatory process was reflected in the final project, which collected 45 different types of housing, obtaining the acceptance and identification of the owners with the project jointly developed. This process that incorporated the individual will of each owner in the management of the whole, also sought to be reflected in the façade by an orderly system of shutters in which that personal wishes modifies the overall composition, thus obtaining an image of the building in permanent change and adapted in each moment to the individual needs.