Hasta La Ideas

Rooms and surfaces are generated from a complex web of hexagons at this contemporary arts centre in Córdoba, Spain, by Madrid office Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos (photography is by Roland Halbe).

Inspired by the patterns of traditional Islamic architecture, Nieto Sobejano planned the building as a non-linear sequence of connecting rooms that open out to one another in a variety of configurations.

“We have always been admirers of the hidden geometric laws through which those artists, artisans and master builders of a remote Islamic past were capable of creating a multiple and isotropic space within the mosque,” explain the architects. “We conceived the project as starting with a system, a law generated by a repeating geometric pattern, originating in a hexagonal shape.”

The six-sided rooms create a meandering trail through the building and each room can be used as either an exhibition area or as a space for art production. Every wall and surface is concrete, intended to evoke the atmosphere of a factory or warehouse.

“Walls and slabs of concrete and continuous concrete floors establish a spatial area capable of being transformed individually using different forms of intervention,” the architects add.

Hexagonal funnels stretch down from the roof to channel natural light into concentrated spaces. Meanwhile, tiny perforations bring narrow beams of light through the facade.

From the exterior, these perforations make up another pattern of hexagons that face out towards the adjacent Guadalquivir River. At night, LED lights illuminate these shapes to present a glowing pattern across the water.

As well as exhibition space, the building also contains artists’ workshops, laboratories and an auditorium for theatrical performances, films screenings and lectures.

The Contemporary Art Centre Córdoba was completed earlier this year, but while it was still under construction a Spanish graphics studio filmed a theatrical dance performance inside. Watch the movie below, or see a larger version in our earlier story.

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos has become a specialist in museum and gallery design in recent years. Others to complete include the subterranean Interactive Museum of the History of Lugo and the perforated aluminium extension to the San Telmo Museum. See more architecture by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos.

Above: location plan – click for larger image

See more photography by Roland Halbe on Dezeen, or on the photographer’s website.

Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image

Here’s a project description from Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos:

Architecture nourishes itself constantly from images hidden in our memory, ideas which become sharp and clear and unexpectedly mark the beginning of a project. Perhaps this is why the echo of the Hispano-Islamic culture which is still latent in Cordoba has subconsciously signified more than a footnote in our proposal. In the face of the homogeneity which our global civilisation imposes in all aspects of life, the Centre of Contemporary Art aspires to interpret a different western culture, going beyond the cliché of this expression used so frequently.

Above: section one – click for larger image

Distrusting the supposed efficacy and flexibility of a neutral and universal container commonly used nowadays, let us image a building closely linked to a place and to a far memory, where every space is shaped individually, to a time which can transform itself and expand in sequences with different dimensions, uses and spatial qualities.

Above: section two – click for larger image

We have always been admirers of the hidden geometric laws through which those artists, artisans and master builders of a remote Islamic past were capable of creating a multiple and isotropic space within the Mosque, a building facetted with vaults and muqarna windows, permutations of ornamental motifs with lattice windows, paving and ataurique decorations, or the rules and narrative rhythms implicit in the poems and tales of Islamic tradition.

Above: section three – click for larger image

Like those literary structures which include a story within another story, within yet another… – a story without an end – we conceived the project as starting with a system, a law generated by a repeating geometric pattern, originating in a hexagonal shape, which in turn contains three different types of rooms, with 150 m², 90 m², and 60 m². Like a combinatorial game, the permutations of these three areas generate sequences of different spaces which possibly can come to create a single exhibition area.

Above: section four – click for larger image

The artists’ workshops on the ground floor and the laboratories on the upper floor are located adjacent to the exhibition halls, to the point where there is no strict difference between them: artistic works can be exhibited in the workshops while the exhibition halls can also be used as areas for artistic production. The assembly room – the black box – is designed as a stage area suitable for theatrical productions, conferences, film screenings, or even for audiovisual exhibitions.

Above: section five – click for larger image

The Centre of Contemporary Art is not a centralised organism: its centre moves from one area to another, it is everywhere. It is designed as a sequence of rooms linked to a public walkway, where the different functions of the building come together. Conceived as a crossroads and meeting place, it is a communal area for exhibitions and exchange of ideas, to view an installation, see exhibitions, visit the café, use the mediateque, wait for the start of a show in the black box, or perhaps gaze at the Guadalquivir river.

Above: section six – click for larger image

The materials will contribute to suggest the character of an art factory which pervades the project. In the interior, walls and slabs of concrete and continuous concrete floors establish a spatial area capable of being transformed individually using different forms of intervention. A network of electrical, digital, audio and lighting infrastructure creates the possibility of multiple views and connections everywhere.

Above: section seven – click for larger image

Outside, the building aspires to express itself through one material: GRC prefabricated panels that at the same time clad opaque and perforated façades, or make up the flat and sloping roofs of the halls. The industrialised concept of the system as well as the conditions of impermeability, insulation and lightness of the material, contribute to guarantee the precision and rationality of its execution but also plays a part in the combinatory concept which governs the whole project.

Above: east elevation – click for larger image

The facade onto the river, a true mask that protagonizes the exterior facade of the building, is conceived as a screen perforated by several polygonal openings with LED-type monochromatic maps behind them. With an appropriate computer program, video signals will generate images and texts that will be reflected on the river’s surface and enable installations specifically conceived for the place. During the day, natural light will filter through the perforations and penetrate the interior covered walkway.

Above: south elevation – click for larger image

In the Centre for Contemporary Art, artists, visitors, experts, researchers and the public, will meet as in a contemporary zouk, without an obvious spatial hierarchy. It will be a centre for creative artistic processes which will link closely the architectural space with the public: an open laboratory where architecture attempts to provoke new modes of expression.

Above: west elevation – click for larger image

Some of the most recent artistic proposals linked to the most recent technologies appear to move away from materiality and submerge themselves in a virtuality disconnected from a concrete place, but perhaps through it, disagreeing with this interpretation – which has become a commonplace – we are convinced that the building itself, the Guadalquivir river, the present and the past of Cordoba, will not simply be a casual circumstance but – as it has been for us as well – will be the start of a dialogue, agreement, or perhaps rejection. For are these not also emotions which underlie the search for all artistic expression?

Above: north elevation – click for larger image

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by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.

A rescued stone colonnade stands amongst planes of concrete at this religious shrine in the Spanish countryside by Pamplona studio Otxotorena Arquitectos (+ slideshow).

Located outside the small village of Alberite, the Shrine of the Virgin of La Antigua stands alone on a hillside, offering wide-stretching views out across the nearby ravine.

Otxotorena Arquitectos designed the structure to accommodate both large parties and individual worship, as the shrine is only likely to attract groups of visitors at certain points on the religious calendar.

A tapered concrete canopy oversails the historic colonnade, which was rescued from near demolition by members of the local community. Concrete supports stand at either end to hold it firmly in place.

“The building volume is conceived considering the idea of framing the archway by building a parallel roof and floor to wrap and protect it,” explain the architects.

A secluded chapel is sheltered beneath the roof at the rear of the structure. Behind this, an irregular framework of concrete louvres shades a length of clerestory glazing and overhangs the end of the building to create a small belfry.

Other examples of isolated religious spaces include a stark concrete church on the side of a Chinese mountain and a see-through church in the countryside in Belgium. See more places of worship on Dezeen.

Photography is by Pedro Pegenaute.

Here’s some more information from Otxotorena Arquitectos:

Shrine of the Virgin of “La Antigua” in Alberite, La Rioja

The site corresponds to a plot on the outskirts of the town of Alberite. This is a 2.000 people village, very close to Logroño in La Rioja, Spain. The place is located on a gentle hill, overlooking a ravine opened into the road running through it. This was a plot of land given to the Parish by the Town Council for the construction of the shrine of the Virgin.

Above: context plan – click for larger image

First of all, the project aims to fulfill all the program requirements, concerning the nature and typical use given to this type of buildings, which, in its immediate environment, serve both for private devotional practices as well as for popular traditional temple fairs. This is a key ingredient in the way of considering the design, since we are obliged to expect a large influx of people within isolated intervals.

Above: location plan – click for larger image

On the other hand, the design also takes into consideration the characteristics of the place in terms of geometric, orientation and topographical measurements. It is also characterized by the appeal and width of its views.

Above: floor plan – click for larger image

Finally, there is added an absolutely fundamental premise: the need to incorporate a preexisting stone archway in the design. This archway was rescued from a previous demolition in the town and it was preserved by the locals. This way, it is intended to re-use the archway and to put more value on it. It was obviously called to assume a main role in the shape and perception of the building from the beginning.

Above: sections – click for larger image

When applying this set of arguments, however, we can remark some of the closely related choices chained to outline the design process:

a) The basic choice of the creation of a relatively wide outdoor space, which provides the interior of the shrine with some anteroom, protects the visitors from sun and rain and frames the view.
b) The attention given to the impact the building will cause in the landscape, even noticeable at long distances, that consists on a horizontal gesture correlative to the extent of the slope overlooking the ravine it faces.
c) The care given to the relationship between the few spaces created, both external and internal, as well as the hierarchical location of the entrances to the site and confined spaces of the chapel.

Above: sections – click for larger image

The building volume is conceived, in any case, considering the idea of framing the archway by building a parallel roof and floor to wrap and protect it.

Above: elevations – click for larger image

For its construction we are to use a single material, concrete, for immediacy and simplicity reasons, considering its suitable conditions of abstraction, continuity, stability and robustness.

Above: elevations – click for larger image

The post Shrine of the Virgin of La Antigua
by Otxotorena Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.

Spanish architects DAHL&GHG designed this house in northern Madrid so that every room faces the garden (+ slideshow).

Named Vivienda en la Moraleja, which translates as Housing in the Moral, the two-storey building is the residence for a family of five.

The clients requested that every room should look out across the garden and that no spaces should face out onto the street.

To achieve this, DAHL&GHG laid out the rooms on a cross-shaped plan, surrounded by a semi-circular perimeter wall.

Living rooms were placed on the ground floor, while most of the bedrooms are located upstairs.

The architects describe the house as being “inspired by the idea of a volcano”, where rooms open out to the garden in “an explosion of light and visual connections”.

This is created with large openings in the rear facade, which reveal living rooms and terraces. A swimming pool stretches out in front.

Other houses in Spain completed recently include an X-shaped residence in Barcelona and a house in Alicante with an 18-metre balcony. See more houses in Spain.

Photography is by Alfonso Quiroga.

Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image

Above: first floor plan – click for larger image

Above: section – click for larger image

Above: section – click for larger image

Above: section – click for larger image

Above: street elevation – click for larger image

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by DAHL&GHG appeared first on Dezeen.

Spanish practice F451 Arquitectura has completed a faceted house and studio for an artist that folds out from a hillside in Gijón, Spain (+ slideshow).

The two-storey residence is divided into four sections, which include living quarters, a double-height atelier, a guesthouse and a car parking garage.

A staircase stretches through the centre of the house and functions as a buffer between the home and studio, which sit on different storeys.

“The merging between the house and the atelier happens in such a way that every space has double orientation, lighting and ventilation,” says F451 Arquitectura.

At the lower level, the double-height art studio is top-lit from a row of north-facing clerestory windows.

Corrugated metal panels are exposed on the ceilings of every room.

Rooms in the living quarters are arranged in a line, with an open-plan living and dining room first, followed by a storage area, a bathroom and a bedroom.

The garage is located underneath, while the guesthouse is positioned at the back of the studio.

Walls are constructed from plaster-covered clay blocks to help to keep the house insulated, plus a layer of grass covers the roof.

Other houses that include studios for artists include a rural wooden cabin in Nova Scotia and a building with a wall of wooden scales in South Korea.

See more artists’ studios on Dezeen »

Here’s a project description from F451 Arquitectura:

Single family house and atelier for the artist Lara Rios

This project hybridizes two typologies: the modern house and the industrial shed with north light from above. The program specificity, with 4 autonomous but interrelated units – house, guest apartment, atelier and garage- together with the slope from the terrain design the frame where we integrated both types into a single volume.

This integration modified the regular use of some of the spaces of the original type based in the new relationship with its immediate surroundings. The house does not land on the ground but changes the relationship with it as the plan progresses. The volume emerges from it in one of the extremes, aligns the house with the garden in the central area and finally detaches itself in the west side.

The open hallway that appears in the central area where the house and the atelier merge is designed as exterior and roofed space. It becomes the area of relationship of the different programs and works as a climatic regulator for them.

The energetic efficiency of the proposal and its landscape integration are two major considerations for the constructive solution of the project. The merging between the house and the atelier happens in such a way that every space has double orientation, lighting and ventilation. The construction is based on a metal corrugated plate exposed in the interior, with a thermal layer of 10cm that covers all the volume and with an exterior finished of flexible stucco on fiber reinforced resins. The vertical walls are made of honeycomb clay block that reinforce the thermal insulation from the outside and increases the interior thermal lag. In the guest apartment the thermal blanket is substituted by a garden roof that establishes continuity between the garden and the building and provides a similar insulation.

Above: concept diagram – click above for larger image

Architects: F451 Arquitectura: Santi ibarra, Toni Montes, Lluís Ortega, Xavier Osarte & Esther Segura
Design team: Juan Gándara, Oriol Vives, Jordi Ribó
Interior design; Laia Isern
Structure consultant: Manuel Arguijo
Quantity surveyor: José Piedra

Above: lower level plan – click above for larger image

Location: Gijón, Spain
Surface: 395 m2
Construction: Cejoysa
Steel works (structure & furniture): Alfer

Above: upper level plan – click above for larger image

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by F451 Arquitectura appeared first on Dezeen.

Bold blocks of colour at ground level contrast with the white upper storeys of this school in Mallorca by Spanish architects RipollTizon (+ slideshow).

The Binissalem School Complex combines both a primary and a secondary school and comprises a single building made up of overlapping volumes and recessed openings.

RipollTizon explains that the building was designed to reference the different scales of its neighbours: “From the beginning, our intent was to develop the project as a dialogue, on different scales, between the school and its surroundings.”

The colourful stripes were generated using photographs of children wearing bright clothing. “The intention of using colour in some parts of the facade is to create a background for the children,” the architects told Dezeen. “Their colourful clothing and movement will blend with the facade.”

The school is laid out on an L-shaped plan with three storeys. This creates long walls along the edge of an adjacent road but opens the building out to playgrounds at the rear.

Classrooms are arranged in tiers so that multi-purpose spaces are located nearest to the playground and can be utilised for non-school events.

A long ramp also leads up from this area to a roof terrace with a view out towards the mountains.

The main entrance is on the north-west corner, where the walls step back to frame a small courtyard.

RipollTizon is led by architects Pep Ripoll and Juan Miguel Tizón. The studio also recently completed a family house at the end of a traditional row.

Other newly completed school buildings include a stark concrete extension to a school in Portugal and a UK school built with brick, aluminium and timber.

See more schools on Dezeen »

Photography is by José Hevia.

Here’s a project description from Ripolltizon:

Binissalem School Complex by RipollTizon

The School Complex (provides primary and secondary school levels) is located in the outskirts of Binnisalem urban fabric. The plot is located along a suburban road named “Camí de Pedaç” on which the urban planning has concentrated a heterogeneous mix of typologies, including diverse row houses, detached blocks and urban facilities.

From the beginning, our intent was to develop the project as a dialogue, on different scales, between the school and its surroundings. On the one hand, the new school building faces the road with a fragmented volume and a broken skyline that enhances perspective effects and scale control in relation to the singularities of the unorganized neighborhood volumes. On the other hand, towards interior of the plot that faces the countryside, the building embraces the sport ground areas creating a facade with bigger scale elements and more compact massing. Moreover, the building areas used only for teaching were clearly separated from those that can be used also for non-school events, creating different building parts and scales that were properly arranged into the complex.

A set back on the facade to the road creates the main access space, an open plaza in the building corner, that generates the circulations and arranges the different functions. The functional packages are grouped in different levels with the intention to reduce the building coverage surface and create a plot area where playgrounds, sport grounds and future extensions can be located.

Above: site plan – click above for larger image

An exterior ramp connects the school grounds to an elevated plaza that is created in the roof of part of the ground-floor. From this roof plaza is also possible to enjoy the excellent views of Binissalem skyline and its surrounding mountains.

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Architects: Pep Ripoll – Juan Miguel Tizón
Collaborators: Xisco Sevilla (architect)
Quantity Surveyor: Toni Arqué

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

IBISEC Collaborators: Juan Vanrell (architect IBISEC)
José Juan Amengual (quantity surveyor IBISEC)
Structural Engineer: Jorge Martín
Building Services E.: TIIS Ingeniería

Above: second floor plan – click above for larger image

Client: Institut d’Infraestructures i Serveis Educatius i Cultural (IBISEC)
Contractors: PROINOSA
Project Area: 3.166 sqm
Budget: 2.060.064 EUR

Above: section – click above for larger image

Start of Design: 2005
Year of Completion: 2011
Location: Camí de Pedaç – Binissalem. Mallorca. Spain

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by RipollTizon appeared first on Dezeen.