Built usign rigged concrete blocks, this residence is an exercise of austerity , which centers its architectural qualities in the stablishment of new relations among its different inhabitats.
Centered in the habitational qualities as well as in enhancing the relationship between the old residents, Óscar Miguel Ares designs this residence in Aldeamayor de San Martín, free of any architectural formalism and from the greatest austerity. The spaces constitute the minimum design capable of generating an environment psichologically pleasant and well lit. where the diffferent services are combined with the rooms, creating circulation systems that are far from the traditional hospital-like ordinary residences for old people.
 

Description of the project by Óscar Miguel Ares y Pedro Iván Ramos

The housing for the elderly in Adeamayor de San Martin (Valladolid) can not be understood without its context. Located on the border of a saline hidden wetland (Salgüeros de Aldeamayor) the aridity of the terrain and the infinite horizontality of the Spanish agricultural esplanade - dotted with small masses of pine trees - dominates the landscape, conditioning the implementation of any structure or artifact. In turn, our approaches were held by insistent ideas: provide our elderly with kind environment which promote to be in touch with nature, with the sun, but also enhancing the close relation between inhabitants of the building; the neighborly relations among chairs in the front door of the houses that are so recognizable in the rural areas of Castilla y León.

On the arid plain of the Castilla y León landscape we have placed a building formed by white concrete blocks paired in a striated way, marking an intense but subtle border with the ground.

The exterior is abstract and hard, as the environment. A seemingly insurmountable barrier, a shell to protect the interior that becomes kind, warm and complex. The external severe geometry contrasts with the inner complexity. The rooms are generated as small cells that clump together organically around the courtyard, creating interstitials and areas of relation, both to the courtyard itself as the interior. The perimeter corridor becomes a place rich in nuances and spaces in the manner of a small town where people can speak in front of the door of their room-houses fleeing the classic configuration of such centers more close to lugubrious hospitals than to kind and welcoming buildings. We wanted places that would allow the close relationship between inhabitants; the neighborly relations among chairs in the front door of the houses that are so recognizable in the rural areas of Castilla y León. More than a residence, the project aims to search for be a real home, so that psychological factors had to be essential in the project approach.

These cells make up the internal connecting paths of the building and coexist with public areas: activity room, fitness room, medical consultations and the large room where has been to create a careful spatiality natural lighting to create a peaceful and seductive atmosphere.

The whole work has been governed by the use of simple and cost-effective materials, without fanfare. Geometry, spatiality, light and careful treatment color and textures to get a warm and cozy interior protected by an abstract and rhythmic limit to the exterior.

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Architect
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Óscar Miguel Ares Álvarez
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Constructor manager
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DO.Óscar Miguel Ares Álvarez /DE Javier Palomero Alonso
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Date
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2013-16
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Venue
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Aldemayor Golf Complex. Valladolid. Spain
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Collaborators
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Bárbara Arranz González, Jesús J. Ruiz Alonso, Dorota Torkaska, Sergio Alonso Alonso.
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Contractor
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CONEDAVI SA
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Surface
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2,000 sqm
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Óscar Miguel Ares. Valladolid, 1972. Archtiect from School of Architecture of Valladolid, in 1998. In 2010, he obtained the title of Doctor from the University of Valladolid - for the thesis "GATEPAC 1928-1939" - being his tutor Mr. Juan Antonio Cortés. Since 2013 he is professor of design at the ETS de Arquitectura de Valladolid. He has collaborated, as visiting professor, at ETSA La Salle (Ramón Lluch University, Barcelona), at San Pablo CEU University (Valladolid) and at the School of Design at Al Ghurari University (Dubai, UAE).
 
His texts and works on architectural criticism have been published in different publications as well as by the composition and projects departments of the ETSA Madrid, UPC in Barcelona –with whom he has assiduously collaborated as editor in the publication DC Papers-, ETSA in Seville and ETSA Cartagena. He has given conferences and lectures in Helsinki, Mexico City, Porto, Pamplona, ​​Barcelona, ​​Madrid or Seville. Author of the book: "Alternative Modernity. Transits of form in Spanish architecture (1930-1936)" University of Valladolid (2016).
 
Since March 2012 he has been carrying out his professional work alone, together with the architect Bárbara Arranz, under the Contextos de Arquitectura y Urbanismo brand. As an architect he has won various competitions, his work being awarded at the XIV Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism 2018; work exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion of the XII Biennale di Venezia (May 2021); selected in XI Biennial of Ibero-American Architecture of Architecture and Urbanism Paraguay (October 2019); finalist in the 2018 FAD Awards; finalist in the 2017 Spanish Architecture Awards; selected Enor Awards (2020), Awarded with the American Architecture Prize (New York, 2017, Bilbao 2019); Awarded with the International Architecture Awards 2018 granted by The Chicago Athenaeum / Europeen (Athens, 2018); Awarded with The Plan Award, (Venice 2018, Milan 2019); more than a dozen awards and mentions at the Castilla y León Architecture Awards (2009, 2011, 2016, 2018 and 2020), as well as awarded at the Castilla y León Sustainable Construction Awards (2017 and 2018). His works have been published in numerous national and international magazines, including METALOCUS, Domus, Arquitectura Viva, Tectónica, Hic Arquitectura or Baumeister, On Diseño and he has exhibited in Madrid, Seville, Venice, Paris and New York.

Director, together with Anna and Eugeni Bach, of the XV Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism, "Empty Spain / Full Spain; conciliation strategies", forming part of the different juries of the awarded categories.


2016  2015

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Published on: November 3, 2016
Cite: "A minimalist residence for the old people in Aldeamayor de San Martín" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/a-minimalist-residence-old-people-aldeamayor-de-san-martin> ISSN 1139-6415
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