The Gran Casino Costa Brava, located in the historic gardens of the Gran Hotel Monterrey in the centre of Lloret de Mar (Girona), is a distinctive environmental and architectural project by b720 Arquitectos, headed by Fermín Vázquez. Practical and singular, the design of the new casino demonstrates an avant-gardiste quality by approaching the complex as a unified structure that rises out of the ground. The building is divided into three clearly differentiated levels that are integrated into the surrounding landscape.
The structure breaks surface as a continuation of the gardens of Hotel Monterrey, which extend between the Tossa de Mar road and the hotel access road. Due to its essentially underground layout, the Casino provides a surface that permits an extension of the hotel gardens. This has revitalized the southern part of the Monterrey complex and the surrounding urban area by providing a large zone for recreational use and services. Although just another element of the topography, concealed underneath the garden and invisible to hotel guests, the building presents a striking, angular façade to the public and street traffic.
When a major recreational facility like a casino is built, a range of services and amenities – a restaurant, parking lot, conference room, and the actual casino floor itself – need to be provided and contained within a single building. However concentrated the services are though, the casino was built so as to not confine its patrons, and allow maximal interaction with the surrounding urban area. Accesibility is key for such a facility, and the casino therefore counts a large parking garage.
The building's design rests on the idea of a unitary, avant-garde image intended to convey the dynamism and emblematic character of the Gran Casino Costa Brava. The building has three clearly differentiated levels. The casino is distributed in a number of areas within the main space on the ground floor. This floor includes the slot machine area, gaming room, nightclub, exhibition space, VIP spaces, restaurant, services (kitchens, storerooms, cloakroom, etc), and administration and security areas. The first floor houses a multifunctional space (auditorium, conference centre, municipal uses, etc) that seats a thousand people. A large foyer that opens to the exterior, service areas and the casino’s management offices are also on this level. Finally, the rooftop, which is for private hotel and casino use, extends the landscapedspace by means of a green mantle planted with local species of low-maintenance shrubs and trees. Three below-ground floors are used mainly for parking (450 spaces), and for installations and subsidiary casino spaces (located on the first basement floor).
Façades and topographic mimicry The inclined planes of the façades are made of integrally coloured reinforced concrete formed using tongue-and-groove pine boards. The floor that houses the multipurpose space is delimited by a series of broken concrete planes that evoke the tectonic movement of the ground from which they rise. The planes open onto a lattice structure that borders the foyer space, through a façade that confers a singular identity on the casino thanks to a system of digital lighting that extends toward the marquee. This multimedia illumination, which can reproduce moving images, comprises LED lights controlled by a centralised system and specific software that creates special light effects according to the activities taking place in the casino. This floor is also linked to the hotel gardens by an opening in the landscaped roof, a feature that facilitates the staging of outdoor events. Interior design The interior design is defined by a number of strata with distinct decorative values. The floor is a continuous surface of low-pile carpeting in different colours to match the activity carried out in each area. This plane is surrounded by a background (reaching to a height of 2.1 m) covered in different fabrics with vertical bands of bronze bevelled mirrors, black glass, bronze, and terrazzo in black and sand tones.
This stratum is generally bathed in light projected from above to highlight its decorative value and create the right atmosphere in each area. Above this level there is a more neutral horizontal band with large backlights that clearly demarcate the dining area and the nightclub space. Finally, hanging lighting in the gaming room makes a striking visual impact. Diffuse golden light emanates from a criss-cross structure that is the crowning decorative feature of this space.
