“DOMUS ANIMAE”, Pavia, Milan, 2015.
“This project is located in the monumental cemetery of Pavia and takes the form of a “domus”, with a central courtyard, like many of the existing buildings of Pavia. A house for souls, a “domus animae”.
The new temple occupies the entire plot with a square volume of concrete which is located in the garden, reserving the existing galleries and the surrounding vegetation.
Its external neutrality must be interpreted by respect for the building and the coherence of its use of space where the interior is the most important and as for the exterior, only the blank wall is shown. The access is produced by the terraced portico which as an inevitable transition space in buildings of this nature, it allows us to gradually leave the outside world and enter the sacred space.
It proposes a place that allows the mortal remains rest and in a space that should propitiate the radical solitude of the individuals before the mystery and the transcendence of the death. A space built with light, diffuse and smooth, which creates an atmosphere that distances us from the outside world and from memory, we associate the sacred.
It creates an essential space, which is defined by a perimeter, a moat of light and a central pond illuminated by a large lantern hung from the ceiling. All supported by four circular pillars. The ground floor emphasizes the essentiality of space.
The perimeter moat from which light springs creates the insurmountable distance between the world of the living and the world of the dead while the large lantern suspended above the pond with water lilies allows us have a relationship with the outside, with life and hope.
The walls suspended in the emptiness symbolize the state obtained by the incineration of the bodies, in transit to eternity, already free.
The project proposes a reinterpretation of the columbarium of the Roman time in an attempt to move away from the current image of the columbarium as small-scale niches posing a more archaic and essential image closer to the sacred”
publications: afasia, divisare
GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, Helsinki, Finlandia, 2014.
“The building site of the new Guggenheim museum of Helsinki is situated on the outskirts of the city’s south harbour. We interpret it as an urban sea promenade with intensive citizen activity that would turn into a new pole of dynamic attraction of the city. The promenade acts as the limit of the city and acquires necessary attributes of the landscape as an isolated and compact volume, that is 60m x 60m width x 32m height. The orientation of the building towards the sea in relation to the urban context shows its autonomous state confirming the fact that it doesn’t belong to the city but to the landscape. In this sense the new Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki is presented as an isolated piece of the Finnish landscape converted into architecture. A building that draws its form from the abstraction of the elements that define the landscape, the forests, the lakes and the high blue sky. The perimeter is constructed of towers evoking the grid of trees of Finnish forests. In its interior there is an empty space as if it was a lake bathed in daylight. This empty space is connected to the exterior by two large openings, one at the entrance of the building and another one facing the sea. The form and the materialization of the building constructed of a white, smooth and polished concrete reflects the changing light and converts the construction into a dense, profound and mysterious building that approaches the landscape as if it was part of it.”
ROSES HOUSE, Roses, Empordà, 2013.
“The plot is perched on the hillside
of Cap de Creus massif. 80m. Above sea level with splendid views of the bay of
Roses and the Pyrenees in the background that are snowy at winter time. The site is excavated in the rock,
exposing the vertical granite wall that we feel is a key
element of the house. A plot, that with its given height only requires a horizontal platform
to create an area from which the sea can be observed under a shelter for sun protection. A concrete tree emerges from the ground and ploughs
through the whole house until it opens up above the square as a fig tree that
protects and shelters.”
ECO-OFFICES LIME 2013, Lima, Perú, 2013
“In this project, we sought the reason of remote ancestral forms in the search for the essence of the imperishable architecture using the wall and patio. The project was to reconstruct the “workspace” of tall buildings to suit site conditions. It flees from the cold crystal clear picture of office buildings and space arises introverted, quiet, enclosed by concrete walls and connected with the city.
LANDABURU FARM HOUSE, Bera, Navarra, 2012 .
“A few kilometers from Bera, the Caserío Landaburu, a small traditional building, anchored in the breathtaking mountainside and a landscape of the Navarre mountains. To work in this exceptional location is an exercise of respect for the fragile building and especially to the mystical power of Mt. Navarro, rich in history and legends. It is a rural house with a few rooms to stay in the existing building and a spacious living area with kitchen built in the mountain becoming part of it, as if the house had been there before the village was built. Sheltered inside the forest as a “cave”, observes the magnificent landscape that is in front of us.”
POA, Pole Océanographique d´Arcachon, Arcachon, France, 2013.
“Three light weighted volumes made of glass is protected by a layer of
water that levitates on sand dunes and pines in Bassin D’Archachon.
Between these volumes, the public space flows freely, from the park to
“belvedere”, where you can admire the magnificent landscape of Bassin. The
three volumes gather around the great empty hall, configured as a compact building that
has genetically modified the superposition of the typical plants of office
buildings and research for accurately adapting to the urban context. The displacement of the volumes
allow it to respond to what the environment requires in each point avoiding the formal
totalitarian principles that dominat visually. The building is located in
the north part of the plot close to Marins street and allows releasing the
space in the south to maintain permeability between the village and the Petit
Port through the creation of a new public space in front is the sea and the citizens park of Arcachon.”
T HOUSE, Girona, 2012.
“The general volume of the house responds to the compromised situation of a steep plot in the middle of a beautiful golf course and lush vegetation of pine and oak trees. The architecture of the house can be seen as the simplest expression and at the same time complex and rich when one discovers its inner world. It should be understood as a passage that moves the inhabitants from the access on the street to a place of privacy and intimacy. The succession of unexpected views and spaces is not discovered until one moves through them. The spatial concept is based on a very basic zoning program which led to an organization that combines enclosed spaces like the kitchen and service area on the ground floor as well as the upper bedroom area with the open spaces of living and dining on the ground floor. The two contradictory elements that both need the other in order to exist, are responsible for the geometrical shape. The house is designed as a thick concrete roof that is balanced in the air with the aid of a rectangular support which in turn belongs to a concrete base that rises from the ground. This roof functions as a huge porch located between the trees providing comfort and relaxation for the inhabitants.”
CRAM Foundation, Plentzia, Bilbao, 2011.
“The new facilities of the CRAM Foundation are located in the former golf course of Prat del Llobregat, in the Equipments Area of the Littoral’s Corridor, with an action area of approximately 20.000m2. A center without references, pioneer in Europe, which incorporates the knowledge of CRAM to obtain a few facilities that allow development in an effective way three basic lines of action of the foundation: firstly there is the clinic and rescue of protected marine species that run aground on the coast for its later reintroduction; secondly, the tasks of conservation, investigation and training, and finally, the social awarness campaign on the state of the marine environment and its problematics. The project looks for a balance between the clinical program of investigation and the public program, with the minimum possible means, to ensure that the conditions of the activity become the key factors in defining the architectural features and volume of the whole. This decision pursues architecture that looks for the equidistant point between its functional condition and its representative condition as a public building.”