PROJECT: CONTEST OF IDEAS OF "DAS ARTS BUILDING" FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF VIGO

Collaborators: JON MONTERO MADARIAGA, LAGULA ARQUITECTOS S.L.

LOCATION: Parcel bounded by Pontevedra- campolongo local road  and the river Lérez.

DATE: September 2005

SPONSOR: Virgo’s University

BUILDER: --------

BUDGET: --------

BUILT SURFACE: 26.000 m2

The other day, travelling by train to Vigo, I saw a rock next to a tower block just outside of Pontevedra, near the island of the sculpture park It was a piece of granite that seemed to float, that large stone table with holes through which the water fell as it rained. I am not certain if I just imagined it.

This proposal considers the campus as a complex element linked and connected by the sculpture park. The new faculty, the Edificio das Artes, will extend the park across the other side of the river, emerging as the centre of the increased university campus.

Edificio das Artes will be built like a porch along the park boundary from start to end. Thus there will be dual access to the building: through the sculptures in the park, if coming from the rest of the campus, or from the proposed new road. The latter will be the official access, directly under a tower separating pedestrian and vehicular access. The two entrances convene inside the building in an exhibition hall, welcome facilities and concierge service.

The building is a large granite element elevated above a structure scheduled, an envelope of a vertebrate stone with a functional skeleton.

The space beneath this porch provides access from the park and exits from the workshops. The rock is continuous on the front and roof, but it is perforated systematically to illuminate units, interconnect floors, extend visual corridors and organise function rooms dependant on their light requirements.

The building is structured around these perforations by pattern of stripes alternating bands of movement with bands of installations.

And as in any crystallographic structure, its centre has the largest and most isotropic elements, with the smaller, more fragmented crystals parts ordered around the perimeter.