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Bodegas Real Winery

The project is an extension of a 17th century farmhouse and wine cellar, which creates a centre devoted to wine culture. A new star shaped piece is placed in the courtyard connecting both the old buildings and the new ones. The large scale of the ancient courtyard is fragmented into smaller open areas linked to the new spaces. In this way the complex acquires a new relationship with the surroundings and the new constructions do not interfere with the old buildings. The courtyard, centre of the activity of the old farmhouse, is transformed by the star shaped construction but maintains its use as it links the new functions around it. The whole area is organized in four parts with different heights articulated in the centre by a small patio with a fountain. The peaks of the star volume open towards the landscape giving entrance to the new complex that becomes the centre of the activity of the winery linking both built and open spaces.

Bibliometro are public-library-stands in Madrid metro stations in which passengers may borrow books and leave them back in any station. Bibliometro intends not only the traffic of culture across the subway of Madrid but also to make readable the journeys of milions of passengers every day. These small light pavilions are immersed in the circulation of passengers and its sinous shape adapts to its flow. They are built with translucent illuminated glass that permit books to be seen from the subway. From the outside passengers may use the screen where the books are displayed, the counter where they are lent and also the box where books are dropped off when they are read.

Pradolongo is not only the precise resolution of a housing programme but rather a way of making the most of the planning capacity of the constructed volume for the benefit of our city and the urban landscape. The footprint of the proposed buildings unfolds horizontally and vertically until they acquire the condition of an independent vertical element with the capacity to become an urban landmark. The volumes start to unfold with two blocks, which form two open public spaces. In this way the linearity of the open block does not exclude the formation of small-scale, private public spaces with an ease of control in which the construction units are immersed creating the gentle private image desired by all residential constructions. A third three-storey unit forms the base of slender, twelve-storey double tower with commanding views towards the park. The plan of the dwellings is displayed crossed in the 12-meter blocks and permits crossed ventilation and different combinations for day areas.

“Espacio Torner” is placed inside the church besides San Pablo Monastery, an impressive site in Cuenca overlooking river Huécar cliffs. In this Gothic interior the work of this artist, one of the founders of the Abstract Art Museum in Cuenca, is installed. The inner space of the church is preserved and a spatial structure of three-dimensional panels displays the art collection without distorting the scale of the desacralized room. In this way there is interplay between both scales, the gothic high nave and the new freestanding structure built with wood panels painted white. The necessary installations are placed under the new pavement and also in the new panels leaving the gothic interior untouched as an independent architecture inside another, where the original vaults can be seen from any point, illuminated with a tenuous golden light. From the outside only the new revolving door open towards the cliff, indicates the intervention.

The extension of the existing Psychology Department is designed to fit into the scale of the existing Faculty and it continues its open layout of courtyards scheme, towards the East and towards the Campus views. The new narrow concrete and glass pavilion has the same height as the former building and it is integrated in its scale. Two new open patios between the old and the new constructions continue the patio layout and separate both constructions. Inside, a double open staircase connects the different levels and areas of the building. The glass and concrete construction differs from the former red brick building as it is meant to be a more individual area of the Faculty but yet included in the Department layout.

It is a very small public library placed in a small town in the surroundings of Madrid where the building should indicate its institutional character. The Library occupies mostly the whole lot in a single height. A concrete wall, form worked with metal mesh cast, surrounds the Library, completely closed towards the street. Natural light comes into the interior space by means of two great skylights built upon two open patios. These light metal prisms define the reading areas, one for children and the other one for adults and the rest of the interior is a continuous space open to the entrance. It is possible to come out to the patios to read. Grids of metal pillars define the structure and the ceilings are sound absorbent painted white. The interior plan of the sloped roof of the skylights is covered with panels of natural clear wood in order to give warmth to the interior space and can be seen from the outside emerging over the concrete walls.

The project consists in the protection of a 4th Century Villa. In this intervention archaeology is confronted to modernity, and the building is confronted to nature. The magnificent mosaics, hidden for centuries under a rural landscape, are the aim of this Museum and so is the integration of new architecture in the landscape. The metal perforated facade provides homogenous lighting to the interior that is covered by a light laminar roof organized in four vaults with a modular rhomboidal structure exposed in the inside as a coffered ceiling. A raised wooden floor joins all the archaeological zones and gets narrow and expands with a disposition for an open display. The space of the rooms is built up with a translucent perimeter of metal mesh as a frame for the mosaics that do not interfere with the wide metallic roof that covers the area. These concepts wish to make visitors aware of the unitary character that these fragments of the past had, favouring the views of the mosaics in differentiated ambits and showing the villa’s original layout.

These 101 low cost housing for the municipality of Madrid are organized in a U – shaped block imposed by regulations. Following the rigorous restrictions that the laws for this type of buildings establish, the block reiterates its desire to constitute a rotund and unitary building. The housing units are assembled minimizing the spaces devoted to communal areas, reduced to only four cores of vertical communications. The compactness of the block is translated on the outside into a dense facade, in which each of the windows provides a solution to the different situations generated inside the apartments: living room, kitchen or bedroom. Prefabricated boxes constitute the bay along its entire perimeter and are transformed as it changes: a greater projection toward the west, one side only and one lintel to the south, to protect the interior from the sun, and boxes almost at level with the flat brick wall on the remaining facades.

The urban context of the new Museum, surrounded by high-rise housing and lacking public spaces, determined its compact character. The entrance is located in the new plaza, key part of the proposal, slightly elevated above the level of the nearby streets. In this way the palm garden becomes a public space for the city as well as an outdoor lobby for the Museum. The building, seen from the outside, is compact and opaque towards the city, made out of natural marble stone pieces from Almeria quarries. Inside, a series of different exhibition rooms displayed in three levels are connected by a large void, which orientates the visitor and links the spaces for the permanent collection and the several activities being held. Only in some places these walls open up as viewpoints towards the city, whereas light is provided by means of skylights on the ceilings. A filter for direct light is constructed with a varnished wooden grid suspended over the exhibition rooms.