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One of the challenges when we set up this collective was to combine an autheur perspective,
where each project is unique and conceived for a particular place and client,
based on a specific sustainable idea,
with our desire to develop from the outset a highly professional structure with a proven track record in the field.
We operate in a sector where, by definition, investment is always significant.
Always.
Our clients are businesses with high levels of demand.
We, in return, are just as demanding, hence the important contribution
that our projects always make to the architecture sector.
We much rather follow our references as well as the concept. Keeping our references at the conceptual level of the project.
This provides us a springboard to develop our work remaining faithful to its essence.
Never would we neglect the basis of a project for the sake of originality.
Working the essential origin we will do our utmost to make sure it’s respected throughout the whole process.
We go to great lengths testing. Explore to the limit.
The users point of view is a key element for us as they are the ones who are going to use the building.
Our goal is to establish a connection between the user and the architectural space.
We think it’s essential that users have a clear notion of the spatial structure of our projects.
It’s important that they understand how they work.
The usefulness they have and the role they should play within our buildings…
To an extent there’s a certain “communication” between our projects and those who experience them.
Hortaleza Sports Center in Madrid is a public building intended to be universally accessible.
The idea behind this project is a very simple one: how can we make the world horizontal?
Our approach was to try to distort reality:
we warped the square where the building is located and we warped the building itself.
The building has an underground floor, a ground floor and one upper floor with several outdoor areas.
People move around via a series of glass, ventilated ramps that form the façade of the building.
The discussion process is essential and the wider-ranging it is the better.
Open dialogue makes all the difference, therefore we as architects are completely available to work with other teams.
The Lumiar Health Center project was a competition we won.
It involved a multidisciplinary assignment, taken up by a large but close-knit team.
It was very interesting to develop, with final construction due to begin in 2014.
We’ve created a sort of enclosure to the building, permeable to both light and ventilation.
Because we’re talking about health facilities with just one floor there were privacy issues
as the rooms for medical appointments would have been on the outer part of the building.
The mesh created between the medical rooms and the exterior is crucial for formal resolution of the building.
An interesting building combines several facets.
Namely the light, the relationship with the exterior,
the proportions and even the “inter-spatial” relationship with adjacent areas.
The hospital project is an especially complex one.
The first big challenge was the fact that we had not only one, but two plots of land, divided by a road.
The client’s objective was to have the most versatile building possible.
By profitable means, with rational spaces, and as modular as possible.
The building is a regular polygon, vertically shafted by three large courtyards.
The four modules are inter-connected by spacious corridors running along the façade.
The façade itself is ventilated and finished with modular sheets of stainless steel.
Our aim is to develop the program always keeping the human focus.
We want to maintain a rich dialogue between the needs of the program and the cultural,
historical and social context that will drive the project as whole.
Zaragoza University residences project made us think of students as people who want to rediscover the world.
Our concept was to design a house with five lines, an ingenious concept of a house.
It was important to understand the house as an individuality and as part of the evolution of the building.
We wanted each floor to be laid out like a village street
and for each street to be formed by the vertical juxtaposition of the houses.
I remember at the time I came across a poem by Ricardo Molinari
that described very clearly that village and the life we had in that village.
Ah, if the village was so tiny That all its streets went by my door.
I wish I had a window That was the center of the world.