05-Sep-2017 The offices of the Castilla León Junta in Zamora.
To build with air, the abiding dream of every architect:
Facing the cathedral and following the outline of the former convent’s kitchen garden, we erect a strong stone wall box open to the sky. Its walls and floors entirely made of stone. The very same stone as the Cathedral. A real Hortus Conclusus. In the corner facing the cathedral, a massive stone measuring 250x150x50, a veritable Cornerstone. And chiselled on that stone:
HIC LAPIS ANGULARIS MAIO MMXII POSITO Within the stone box, a glass box, only glass. Like a greenhouse. With a double facade similar to a Trombe wall. The external skin of the facade is made of glass, each single sheet measuring 600x300x12 and all joined together simply with structural silicone and hardly anything else. As if entirely made of air.
The trihedral upper angles of the box are made completely with glass, thus even further accentuating the effect of transparency. Precisely what Mies was looking for in his Friedrichstrasse tower. The trihedron built with air, a true Glass Corner. And engraved in acid on the glass:
HOC VITRUM ANGULARIS MAIO MMXII POSITO The stone box made from Memory. With its Cornerstone deeply rooted in the soil. The glass box made for the Future. With its Glass Corner blending into the sky.
To build with air, the abiding dream of every architect.
11-Jul-2012 In collaboration with Pablo Fernández Lorenzo, Pablo Redondo Díez, Alfonso González Gaisán and Francisco Blanco Velasco.
We raise high stone walls built of the same stone as the Zamora Cathedral, that follow the outline of he site, like a box open to the sky. We thus achieve a secret garden in which we conserve and plant leafy trees, aromatic plants and flowers. And we open openings in these stone walls that frame, from within, the cathedral, the landscape and the surrounding buildings. And in this verdant garden we build a transparent glass box that makes it seem as if one is working within the garden.
For the stone wall, qualities and dimensions were studied to express the strength of the stone in the same way as it is in the Cathedral. The same stone in large dimensions and with great thickness that accentuate the strength of the proposal.
For the building itself, a glazed and perfectly controlled facade was conceived, with maximum simplicity in its construction system. The facade works actively in regard to the climate, able to hold in heat in the winter (GREENHOUSE effect) and at the same time to expel the heat and protect the building in the summer (VENTILATED facade) It is a stone box open to the sky that holds a crystalline box and protects it and tempers it, immersed in the midst of a wonderful garden.
