A trade fair venue such as the one that is the subject of this tender in Liège has an institutional dimension coupled with the fact that it is a public amenity. This means that an architectural challenge is also a great opportunity to transform the immediate urban vicinity and enhance the city as a beacon of architecture.This contextual dimension and the quest for urban value have to coexist with the organisational and functional efficiency of the programme of a trade fair venue. These two factors are not in the least contradictory. The programme to be completed may be summarised in terms of the following aims: 1) The utmost clarity to deal with the attendance of vast numbers of people in very specific periods of time; 2) the demand for a swift and effective management of the exhibition spaces, minimising the assembly times and movements; 3) the adaptive capability of these exhibition spaces to the various demands typical of a trade fair venue, and 4) clarity with regard to movement through and access to the venue.The access plaza not only gives the building a public character and increases its potential to regenerate the context, it also regulates access to the building in a clear manner in so far as it is a space that precedes the entrance. All visitors who arrive from the tram station or parking spaces situated at the southern end are funnelled by an 'access gate' to this plaza. Once they have passed through the 'access', visitors are surprised to encounter the space of the plaza. It is on the eastern side, opposite the plaza, where the large utilities area is located, ideal for the convenient transit of trucks and the parking spaces allocated to exhibitors, employees and users other than the general public. All of the car parks are enveloped as green spaces.The floor space, once one crosses the concourse that is open to the access plaza, which can also be used as an exhibition space, is resolved by the central layout of all of the halls, joined together and in continuity, in such a way that they can easily and immediately be joined or separated. These halls with this layout are bounded on three sides: to the west, north and south, by pedestrian walkways so that the public can gain easy and immediate access and, more importantly, the halls can be joined together without having to rely on the layout of the access points.A 1,000 m² hall is an exception to this central and linked layout of the rest of the halls. It is situated at the southern end of the plaza and forms the entrance from the access route marked out by the tram stop.Nevertheless, this positioning means that it can respond to certain exhibition uses that call for contact with the plaza, as well as other types of uses.We propose a section of the building in which the roof structure possesses great architectonic expressiveness, while at the same time qualifying the internal space. This is a programme in which it is essential to have clear surface spaces that are not constrained by the building's structure, and this means that the horizontal structure acquires importance in itself, becoming a special part of the project that helps us to shape attractive spaces.

The BIOMA project is essentially a synthesis project.Programmatic synthesis. It combines research, teaching and exhibition. Spaces of different scales and functions that, although related in that all three make up the BIOMA institution, are different in essential matters such as the degree of their public dimension.Citizen synthesis. The University of Navarra is based and configured on very different urban structures. On the one hand, in the "lower part", it is configured as the most attractive park in the city. Its isolated buildings are nothing more than points, elements scattered and at the same time united by this great green fabric, natural and adapted to the topography, which is in itself one of the most interesting public spaces in Pamplona. On the other hand, the upper part, more urban and densified, where the educational centers belong to a plot configured according to traffic roads and urban continuities. The new BIOMA building, located between both parts of the Campus, has to assume its belonging to both, configuring itself as a synthesis of these two dimensions and urban structure and turning them into a single and specific one.Landscape synthesis that is reflected in the fact that the building is a meeting place between an elevated plane, a sort of horizontal platform, and an abrupt topography that descends towards the south, towards the campus park. A building that, from below, will be seen as a "lighthouse", a reference with symbolic overtones while, seen from above, it will be the "viewpoint" that projects its magic towards the lower campus.But it is in the synthesis of such different and even contradictory situations, in the general tensions for a complex reality, welcoming complexity, where a project capable of becoming something attractive and suggestive becomes possible. BIOMA tries to reach a compromise, by no means impossible, between the most artificial order and the most organic disorder; between the most mineral materiality and light as an abstract fact; between being a viewpoint or a lighthouse; between seeking maximum efficiency but also those values that symbolize and are capable of expressing the will of a University that wants to reaffirm itself with the pride of things well done; between the built and the natural. I have said on several occasions that this is for me the most difficult project I have ever faced, and I believe it is also the most attractive. This difficulty exists thanks to the contradiction, which being a problem becomes, at the same time, a fruitful crucible in which to make architecture. BIOMA aspires to be a great synthesis from a continuous and beautiful contradiction.

To raise an office building of uncertain ownership, in a place of little allure, at least one of few clear references, where there are no examples to look at, no other buildings worth commenting on or establish a dialogue with. In such circumstances, the main reflection governing the project has to do with the typological and constructional aspects of offices, in particular of offices in the climate and reality of Madrid. Almost all the buildings in this part of Madrid are characterless glass boxes, anonymous, as if office buildings had no rightful place in the world of representation. What we have to do here is raise a building that, independently of the people who will be renting the spaces, permanently expresses what it does, just as the first office buildings of the end of the 19th century and start of the 20th did. So our building has a classical bent. It is classical in layout, with a symmetrical floor plan, in accordance with two axes, and it is classical in external appearance, with the facade superposed by a second one that steps up solar protection while giving the elevation increased depth, built with prefabricated concrete panels which are grooved and geometrically abstract in their unmistakable classical intentions. The classical reference, however, is softened by the way the building sets itself backward in the higher floors and by the way the corners are sealed with a material different from the above-mentioned prefab concrete panels. In this way the facades are perceived as planes superposed on the concrete volume, increasing the impression of lightness that the construction gives, and the corners of the building are also visible from inside.The choice of a golden color for the prefab concrete pieces is intended to make light its and reflections what give expression to the building, a building which will change in appearance throughout the day.

This proposal started off with deliberations on the project at large, including the future of the Velarde and Oviedo-Portal mansions. It could not be any other way. Only through consideration of the larger scheme of things can there be any guarantee of an optimal operational future for an institution as important as this one.
We also understand that the proposed new layout makes it possible to organize construction work in phases, and in such a way that museum operations are at no time interrupted.The objectives/guidelines of the architectural action are:-An image and identity that, over and above the historic- architectural substratum of the site, will give the Fine Arts Museum of Asturias its own uniqueness as an institution.-Respect for that historical substratum.-Diaphanous spaces that facilitate exhibition montage and make it possible to contemplate artworks with sufficient perspective, unlike how things are at present.-Clear-cut internal functioning.-Clear-cut accesses.-A substantial increase in exhibition floor area.

Teulada-Moraira is one of those municipalities divided into two separate physical units. It could well have been called ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ Teulada, or ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ Moraira. The built area of Teulada is in the mountain, and that of Moraira is further down, following a valley of some five kilometers along the Mediterranean shores.The building of the new auditorium acts as a hinge between the two physical areas of the municipality. A reference that allows seeing and being seen from both spots. As far as hall types and complementary uses are concerned, the program is simple. The organization and layout of the pieces undergoes a total geometric and spatial transformation towards the southern facade that, being oriented to the sea, becomes the most singular and significant element of the project. Its depth gives it a sense of architectural section that urges to follow a three-dimensional interpretation (in terms of space), instead of a restricted two-dimensional scale. In metaphorical terms this facade evokes topography similar to a beach of stone that, from a distance, and with all its depth, appears to merge into the sea. In more practical terms, its deep and cracked geometry emerges from the study of the impact of the sun and the geometry it generates, especially during summer, so its final configuration aims to avoid the impact of sunrays in the interior. The base of this “facade” is a large exhibition hall that, as a sort of “cellar” that is softly lit by the rays that manage to make their way through the thick vertical concrete grille, fresh in summer and warm in winter, may provide the southern facade - based on more conceptual references - with a functional argument.The building shall be seen from a distance as a volume covered in tiles, like fish scales. Matte tiles that will be attached to the concrete walls. The shifts, setbacks and projections of the facade that is oriented towards the sea will be made of sandblasted marine aluminum sheet. Different spots of light, made of optic fiber, will be a value added to the volume seen from afar or from the water.

The basic form of the building is determined by its context and the continuity, both in terms of concept and program, which it establishes with the adjoining Palace of Bendaña, currently the Naipes Fournier Museum.In the permanent exhibition halls, all horizontal surfaces, floors and ceilings, are very dark. The wood floor (almost black) and the continuous ceiling (also black) form a closed and dark ‘box’ or chest delimited by the facade walls clad externally in a folded skin of bronze sheet, with pieces that are superposed or stepped depending on the lighting needs. 

But these dark spaces are traversed by white glazed prisms – round which the exhibition of pieces is organized – that shall draw light in from the roof at daytime, coming from an internal illumination in the darkness. These prisms shall be inlaid with graphics and information to describe the items, but beyond this pedagogical task, their light will speak of the adventure of interpretation, the metaphor that makes reference to light in a dark space, to the hope of being able to interpret aspects from our past.Towards the interior of the plot, the access courtyard is configured by more transparent boundaries: it is the bronzed skin that opens up with constant rhythm allowing space to signal visitors into the exhibition areas.

Ávila is a dense and intense city. Its layout, centered and delimited by the smoothly crafted city walls, confirms this perception. Actually, Ávila itself is a rock amid the harsh landscape surrounding it.Within such thickset contexts, any clear space takes on an added value much related to the concept of contrast or of boundary. In such cases a square serves as a means to free up interior space, and externally, to articulate the relationship with the city walls. The area outside the walls belies the origin of these voids that organize the space between the city inside, and the city outside. The presence of an open space at the foot of the walls, where the new Congress Center shall go up, allows thinking of new systems to structure the urban space.During the project design the guiding principles were conceptual density, generosity in the way of occupying space, and exploitation of the topographical features of the site. The landscape studded with granite pieces, both formally and spatially, provided the references needed.The Municipal Congress and Exhibition Center is aimed at becoming a meeting place to celebrate different kinds of events, a levelled area or plaza at the edge of the walls. The main level of this area is matched up with the highest point of the plot, so that its extension generates a large interior void that shall house, without excavation, the required uses.The building basically takes up the northern side of the new public space, delimiting along with the walls the new square. In keeping with the contours of the site, the project combines two different geometries: the most orthogonal and elongated space contains the auditoria and main halls, while the most precipitous and uneven one contains the exhibition spaces.Entry to the complex is clear and easy: the main auditoria are reached from the square and from the higher part of the seating area, which allows to get a quick grasp of the interior space; and the exhibition areas have an independent entrance from the incisions on the platform in the eastern boundary and, since all the different areas are connected under the square, they can also be reached from the interior of the building. From a formal and constructional point of view, the project draws inspiration from the evocative strength of the landscape, from the granitic mass that pervades everything.The volumes are meant to be seen from afar, high up from the walls like a sculpture carved out of the terrain. It is a juxtaposition of granite volumes, summed up in one piece, a more orthogonal one, cut and carved in a precise manner, and another more abrupt and topographical piece that covers the exhibition volume. For this reason the roofs shall be designed to smoothly extend the vertical surfaces. These folds generate the incisions through which natural light floods the interior, also allowing independent access to this area.