Page 149 - AIT1018_E-Paper

Entwurf • Design Amaa Architects, ES-Ar chena
Bauherr • Client Stadt Archena, ES-Ar chena
Standort • Location C/Felipe II, ES-Archena
Wohnfläche • Floor space 346 m 2
Fotos • Photos David Frutos, ES-Torre Pacheco
Mehr Infos auf Seite • More infos on page 192

BUSINESS INCUBATOR

IN ARCHENA

The new business incubator in the city of Archena in sout-
hern Spain looks like an asteroid which has crashed to
earth. At night, the building immerses its surrounding
area into an white light. With it, Alberto Gil Torrano and
María José Guillén presented their hometown with an
extraordinary design, which has an immense radiance in
a figurative as well as in the fullest sense of the word.

A rchena is a tranquil small town in the south of Spain whose popu-
lation mainly lives off agriculture. At the same time, the close to
20,000 inhabitants benefit from the proximity to the provincial capital of
Murcia located about half an hour’s drive away. Both factors had the
consequence that Archena is relatively prosperous and that the number
of inhabitants is steadily growing. Above all young people and families
Grundriss • Floor plan from the rural surrounding area are moving here. New residential
districts thus spring up around the city core year after year. One of them,
located in the south of the city, has now been complemented with a
spectacular new public building which was quite deliberately planned
as a landmark on the periphery. The crystalline structure, completely
covered with polycarbonate panels and serving as a modern business
Längsschnitt • Longitudinal section incubator, was designed by Alberto Gil Torrano and María José Guillén.
The young and local architect couple jointly operates under the name of
Amaa Architects. Like a gigantic erratic block, the building stands at the
boundary between the city and the countryside. Towards the settlement,
the construction ducks almost humbly; towards the countryside, how-
ever, it rises up all the more proud and challenging. Around it, the archi-
Querschnitt • Transversal section tects produced an acute-angled concrete topography of inclined planes,
stairs and platforms which is used above all by the young people in the
neighbourhood as a public meeting point. Inside the translucent, ob li -
que-angled monolith as well, Torrano and Guillén used the motif of an
artificial rocky landscape. It extends upwards across a total of five levels
and into the depth of the large single space which is the contact point,
the shared office and the networking forum of the local scene of entre-
preneurs and start-ups. The different levels are interconnected by a wide
cascading staircase making its way like a waterfall through the three-
dimensional spatial structure. At the ground-floor level, the “rock” cover-
ed with concrete-grey wood-cement panels has space for two sanitary
rooms, a small storage room, as well as an open-plan office. There is no
doubt that the city and the architects thus achieved a “light-house pro-
Konstruktionsdetail • Construction detail ject” – at night even in the full sense of the word!

AIT 10.2018 • 149