A Long Floating Box beside an Old Wall
In Amorebieta-Etxano, a Basque town in Spain, a musical school occupies a long thin, four-story box which floats above a recessed ground floor. It extends from an adjacent cultural center, the Zeleieta Center, which it is adjoined to by a ground (first) floor wall at one end and a central vertical circulation shaft.
The building can be understood as an autonomous organism. A gap divides the old and new buildings, creating an extra facade to complete and resolve all the perimeter of the actual facilities. The old wall of the adjoining ball game court becomes the real protagonist of the project, its new visibility presenting different overlapping sections built at at different times.
The Musika Eskola will work as an independent element, respecting the orthogonal criteria and abstraction of the adjacent cultural center.
The ground floor closes around a patio that will work as a drainage element and water tank in case of a flood. It is given an offset from the longitudinal facade to create a porch all across the floor and emphasise the access. The top floors resolve the program forming a regular prism three floors high, parallel to the new facade and gap, and a corbel. The second floor, the lowest in the floating box volume, has a double-height auditorium. The two top floors are divided into various rooms. The floors are compact, to achieve an optimization in the available area and an effective, useful and compact box.
The structure is resolved in the perimeter, with the facades becoming load baring walls. The staircase shaft outside of the box volume is glazed for greater transparency. They become an architectonic experience so that the user can have a view of the park and understand the patio dimensions and the building character as an abstract and singular space.
Project: Nueva Zubiaur Musika Eskola en Amorebieta-Etxano / Location: Txiki Otaegi Kalea – Parque Zelaieta, s / n, 48340 Amorebieta / Architect: Javier de las Heras Solé / Architecture collaborators: Gerard Codina Mas(technical architect), Salvador Bou Gracia(architect), Mercedes Sánchez Hernández / Collaborators: Peio Egurrola Marzo (technical architect), Eskubi-Turró arquitectes slp(structure), Proisotec enginyeria slp, Eko Ingenieria Acústica, Societat Orgànica(eficiencia energética), Doitu(topografía) / Promoter: Amorebieta-Etxano Udala / Surface area: 1,010m² / Competition: 2015.4 /Completion: 2020.4 / Photograph: Adrià Goula Photograf
