GUADARRAMA

Public competition, 2nd prize. Nature interpretation center.

The building proposed for the Guadarrama Park interpretation center is of a simple, compact and forceful plan. In an effort to purify architecture, we invite the center's visitors to enter it through a building inspired by the rules of a Spartan existence: reducing the built world to austere forms, akin to minimalist sculptures in a captivating landscape.

Two pure volumes—one for exhibition and another for administration—are the only “visible architectural” elements that make up the site of the “Nature Interpretation Center.” Two glass pieces, wrapped in wooden slats, resting on a stone plinth and stitched together by a glass box that creates the access, appear as a sculptural element that frames the natural forest, so as not to lose sight of the true protagonist of the scene: the pine grove.

The building is clad in an envelope of wooden slats, whose patina will enter into dialogue, as it ages, with the pine grove that surrounds it. Only two materials—wood and stone—are needed to realize the proposal. Reinterpreting the concept of local architecture and endowing the center with a contemporary architecture that does not seek to blend in with the existing.

The difference in level on which the building sits allows, on the one hand, its visual impact from the park to be minimized—since part of its volume remains half-buried—and, on the other, a more forceful image to be shown from the lower part of the town. Functionally, behind this stone plinth are the building's own services. The access plaza reinforces the building's longitudinal character: bands of stamped concrete contained between stone curbs direct the visitor toward the access.

Public competition: Guadarrama Nature Interpretation Center / Location: Guadarrama, Madrid / Competition date: 2010 / Architects: Claudio González – Bettina Koroluk – Mariano Escribano / Competition result: Second prize

La plaza de acceso refuerza el carácter longitudinal del edificio: unas bandas de hormigón impreso contenidas entre bordillos de piedra, direccionan al visitante hasta el acceso.

Concurso público: Centro de Interpretación de la Naturaleza de Guadarrama / Ubicación: Guadarrama, Madrid/ Fecha del concurso: 2010/ Arquitectos: Claudio González – Bettina Koroluk – Mariano Escribano / Resultado del concurso: Segundo premio

Location

Guadarrama, Madrid

Year

2012

Area

70ha