The project takes shape as a dialogue between the two existing sheds, a link that turns two isolated buildings into one, a link whose permeability changes with the season. The solution is formalised from formal and constructive austerity, adapting to what is already there. The project plays a decisive part in its integration into the complex: keeping the image of the whole alive and adapting to the existing slopes. Introducing native vegetation reinforces that integration. Thanks to the strategy followed, the project strengthens the identity of the place. It concentrates on turning life towards the cloister it creates, the organising core of the proposal.

The project is laid out over three floors. On the ground floor are all the administrative spaces and part of the teaching area, establishing a direct relationship with the Sa Coma complex. On the first floor are most of the standard classrooms, all of them allowing the desks and chairs of students and teacher to be properly arranged; the two sheds are joined by a walkway that crosses from one to the other to make direct circulation easier. On the second floor are the small classrooms, for fifteen students. Every room has privacy where it is needed, together with proper daylight and natural ventilation. Because the project is conceived from modulation and constructive simplicity, it accepts a degree of variation without major changes.

Having analysed the requirements set out in the competition documents, the architectural proposal takes as its premise the intention to conserve and recover as far as possible the materials and constructive elements of the existing buildings, in order to optimise the resources invested in the project and so to seek and promote the greatest possible saving in the cost of the works.

That founding premise, together with the rationality of the existing buildings, leads to the decision to conserve the structure and much of the constructive elements that make up the façades, with small improvements, and to remove entirely the façades that open onto the link between the two volumes, in order to give it a use adapted to the requirements of the new building's programme.

The aim of this strategy is to optimise the structural and constructive elements of the building. It generates a saving in the budget for items as significant as structure and foundations, which means cheaper construction costs, and it favours the understanding and the appreciation of the original image of the complex.

Author

Mcatecnics

Photography

Alejandro Cañellas

Location

Ibiza

Date

2019