The WOHA architecture firm, leads by Antonio Maciá, designs its work space based on the landscaped courtyards of the houses in Elche. A landscaped patio that serves as a base to lodge harmoniously a serie of miniprojects.
Antonio Maciá uses the predominant vegetation and earth-colored materials in the inner courtyards of Elche as a basis to create a harmony between a series of mini-projects.

Longitudinal planters are placed on the perimeter of the premises to provide the space with a changing character that grows and transforms with time. A table is designed that includes a series of plants that allow to sift the visual relationships between the users. Two layers of sinuous geometry appear separated from the wall that define a storage area. These intersect giving continuity longitudinal work space and allow to assess the transparency of the material.

All the mini-projects together are those that define the designed workspace.

Description of project by Antonio Maciá

The study project is based on the landscaped patios that form part of the traditional housing in the rural surroundings of Elche in which predominates the vegetation and the earthy coloured materials like pieces of terracotta, ground or mortar pavements that use the surrounding land.

The designed space is the result of propose an “inner landscaped patio” that attends as the base to add, in a harmonic form, a series of mini projects: the planters, the work table, the installations, the closet, the ceramic wall and the bathroom.

The first of them contemplates the placement of a series of longitudinal planters situated on the perimeter of the local that has natural illumination and that configure the garden of this “inner patio”. This space confers, to the designed space, of a changing character as it is configured with a living “material”, which grows and change it with the passage of time.

Direct conversation, indirect, isolation, closeness, separation or different levels of the visual relationship between the people that forms a team, define the premises of the working space. The answer to these conditions could lead to the design of individual pieces that respond to each one of them, however, the proposal tries to unify them and proposes the design of a single table. The design of the table includes a series of natural plants that allow sifting the visual relations between the members of the team that use it.

The planters need a series of ducts that allow them to take the drip irrigation installation and the table needs the proper artificial lighting: the third mini-project appears.

Two layers of sinuous geometry separated from the blind longitudinal wall of the room define a storage area. The first one is made of pine strips and the second is formed by a curtain of white thread. Both layers intersect giving longitudinal continuity to the workspace and allow to assess the degree of transparency of the material that is displayed, it insinuates or hides valuing, therefore, what is shown, models ..., and what not, materials and documents or the service area.

The ceramic wall of the meeting room is resolved by a wall in which the bricks, placed at 90⁰, the curvature of their shapes and the use of carpets in the back and pavement of the room so that they favour the acoustic conditions of this subspace without needing to isolate it spatially at 100%.

Finally, the service area is hidden behind the thread layer and defined by an office and a bathroom.

The design of each of these mini-projects and their addition does not define the designed workspace on their own, but rather their correct interrelation which allows obtaining a more complex project that directly affects the user of the space, on the way of perceiving it, a slowly changing space, about the concentration and distension of the work team, about the environment, about the smell, ...

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Architects
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Project Team
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Lead architect.- Antonio Maciá. Architects.- Ana Mora Vitoria. Arquitecta and Cristina Giner Trives. Technical architect.- Francisco Rodríguez Navarro.

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Collaborators
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Illumination.- Nuevo Tecnoluz, SL. Landscape.- Justo Carbonell. Carpentry.- HP mobiliario. Supply of Materials.- Quiles Construction Supplies, S.L. Pavimentos Craft Ceramics.- Todobarro.

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Client
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WOHA Arquitectura SL

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Area
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125 m²

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Budget
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€ 35,000

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Location
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Elche (Alicante), Spain

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Date
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2018

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Antonio Maciá Mateá (Elche, 1970) graduated in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Valencia in 1997. His academic record was recognised with two national awards for outstanding university achievement.

Since 1997, he has taught at the Higher Polytechnic School of the University of Alicante, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering. His teaching focuses on building structures, structural rehabilitation, advanced design and the development of singular structural projects.

In 2016, he earned a PhD in Materials, Water and Ground Engineering. As a member of the GRESMES research group, his work focuses on experimental design, structural simulation, lightweight structures and composite materials made from Posidonia oceanica waste. He has also participated in research, technology transfer and teaching innovation projects.

He is the director of Antonio Maciá A&D — Architecture and Design, a studio founded in 1997 and devoted to architecture, interior design, product design and temporary architecture. In 2011, he also co-founded WOHA — World of Holistic Architecture in Elche, an interdisciplinary platform exploring the relationships between architecture, art, design and nature.

His work has received awards and distinctions in architectural competitions and exhibitions. He has also held positions in academic management and professional representation, including serving as President of the Alicante Territorial Association of Architects. In addition, he has sat on juries and committees and has curated several architectural exhibitions, including the various editions of Lightness.

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Published on: April 2, 2019
Cite:
metalocus, ADRIÁN MARTÍNEZ
"A garden for work. WOHA architecture studio by Antonio Maciá" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/a-garden-work-woha-architecture-studio-antonio-macia> ISSN 1139-6415
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