PALACIO DE CONGRESOS Y RECINTO FERIAL
The design of the Congress Palace follows the essential aspects set out in the competition rules: integration with an environment of great environmental value, flexible operation in accordance with the proposed program and the creation of a viable and easily maintainable building.
CONCEPTUAL INTEREST AND ARCHITECTURAL VALUE
The building is located on a beautiful hillside that is currently used as a natural golf course. The positioning strategy on the plot is twofold: on the one hand, an access point is sought that corresponds to the average height of the circular access road, facilitating accessibility to the building; secondly, it is located on the upper part of the site, allowing the interior development of the building - heights and slopes - to be in accordance with the natural slope of the land, so that there is a correspondence between topography and interior operation.
The program requires a significant surface area and the requirements of the auditoriums require a considerable volume to flexibly resolve the proposed uses. In order to seek the best possible adaptation to the environment, the building also bends to the topography, creating volumetric gestures capable of harmonizing and conceptually blending in with the place as well. The gestures of the project are based on three conditions of the place:
Entrance Gesture: the access from the curved road generates a folded V-shaped geometry, which favors the concept of access.
Topographical folds: in order to minimize the large constructed canvases, the facades fold to adapt to the topography, offering a friendly image and breaking the large scale of this typology.
Slopes and views: the site has a double slope towards the valley - with very good views from the Fairgrounds - and towards Madrid. This allows a third fold of opening and viewing point towards the distant views from the foyer and cafeteria itself.
In the case of the Fairgrounds, it is the condition of a single plane that marks its location on the ground. In this proposal, the perimeter of the square is broken up in search of the necessary levels to connect with the access road at some points or to rise as a viewing point at others. The level of the square is similar to the level of the northwest corner of the plot, the closest to the urban core and from where the access is planned. It is at this level that the horizontal plane of the multipurpose outdoor square is established, around which the natural terrain is staggered to connect.
TYPOLOGY AND ORDERING OF VOLUMES
Typologically, the building is simple: a central box surrounded by a faceted volumetry like a stain that expands, emphasizing the strategic points of the project in the place. At a programmatic level, the building consists of a rectangle that contains the 2 auditoriums - the heart of the project - and the volume that surrounds it contains the uses of foyer - exhibitions and the rest of the rooms.
The typology of the Congress Palace requires large rooms and consequently notable and rigid volumes due to their functional requirements. The folded volumes aim to form a friendly geometry, which conceptually blends in with the slopes and mounds of the place.
Functionally, a very flexible auditorium box is proposed, inscribed in a rectangle with perimeter circulations - stairs, elevators, accesses, corridors... - . The foyer, resolved at different heights, allows different options for exhibitions, and different access and exit options accommodated to the different levels of the auditoriums, allowing different events with different characters.
OCCUPATION AND INTEGRATION IN THE ENVIRONMENT
The building is located in the highest part of the hillside, allowing vehicle access, almost invisibly, avoiding vehicle access on the landscaped slope, and minimally affecting pedestrian access. The position of the building and its geometry, both in plan and elevation, generate folded profiles, generating green roofs with the dual purpose of integrating into the environment and achieving minimum hard surfaces.
Volumetrically, the building is folded with the intention of also adapting to the slope, avoiding very long facades, avoiding walls, and minimizing the heights of the building. The adaptation of the building to the topography allows the visual impact to be minimized, creating a landscape building, where topography and architecture compose a harmonious rhythm. The design of the roofs is essential for the integration of the building into the site. The strategy used allows the volumetry to be diluted into the environment, offering variable silhouettes with sinuous gestures. It is important to point out that the unevenness of the site allows a clear reading of the roofs from the highest point of the road. The green roof over the foyer allows a reading of continuity with the landscaped slope. The roof of the auditoriums is made of the same metallic material as the facades, whose folded geometry forms a kinetic silhouette, and therefore changes depending on the point of view.
The material used for the facades produces a diffuse reflection, faintly reflecting the green color of the nature that surrounds the building, which allows a certain fusion with the environment. Seeking a certain mimetic game.
The color of the matte polished brass anodized aluminum adds warmth to the whole. The scale of the building is distorted to obtain an adequate relationship with the place. The abstraction in the design of the facades, through structural “ribs”, allows an optimal relationship with the nature of the place.
This same relationship, but this time taking the Fairground as a subject, aims to establish itself organically on the topography of the place through a set of folded profiles, and also from its condition of a single plane, which marks its seat on the ground and whose perimeter is broken in search of the necessary levels to connect with the access road at some points or rise as a viewing point at others.
SPATIAL AND VOLUMETRIC RELATIONS
The building is designed from a dynamic perception approach, so that very rich relationships are established, both internally and externally. The first relationship is derived from a foyer that adapts to the stepped terrain, allowing double or triple height spaces; in the same way the successive stairs leading to the auditorium from the foyer provide dynamic itineraries inside the building; At the same time, it allows for cross-visuals between the interior space and the landscaped exterior due to the ribbed façade, which from the inside of the building allows an absolute view of the exterior if the gaze is orthogonal, but if it is tangential, it concentrates on the content of the interior space. The spectator and visitor themselves permanently discover the relationships between inside and outside as they walk through it. The reading of the building is very clear from the moment the visitor enters the building: the entrance hall is clear and from it any level can be accessed; from the perimeter foyer there is always a clear view of the auditoriums, the different entrances and from the outside.
On the other hand, the single plane that makes up the urban piece of the Fairgrounds complements and enriches the relationship between the urban core of Pozuelo de Alarcón and the natural landscape that makes up the Adolfo Suárez Forest Park, the Casa de Campo and the skyline of Madrid. From the volumetric analysis carried out on the area of action, the character of a viewing point is observed in one of the edges of the topography of the plot, which was decided to extend over the entire plane that makes up the Fairground.
EMBLEMATIC BUILDING, DESIGN WITH RECOGNIZABLE AND ELEGANT COMPOSITION
The project proposes an emblematic building, integrated into the environment and timeless. The folds in the facades and roofs offer a faceted, elegant, austere and dynamic image. The depth of the facade gives a certain robustness to the whole, contrasted by the slenderness of the ribs. It is designed from a unitary perspective, both in gestures, volumetry and materials, causing an effect of a “valuable object”, like a carved jewel. However, it is not intended to be a mute, dead object, merely sculptural. On the contrary, the openwork facade allows us to glimpse the life of the building, so that it also acts as a skylight in the landscape when nocturnal activity requires it. In this sense, the interior activity is visible so that the building also behaves as a living organism.
