CrystalZoo designed this new Environmental Education Centre in Alicante. Its authors explain that the centre, which is situated in a natural landscape dotted with olive trees, is a reinterpretation of the region's vernacular architecture, the traditional rural construction known as Riu-Rau. A different and interesting way to approach to surrounding nature us.

Description of project by its architects

The complex, with a multifunctional character, looks for dispelling seasonal tourism through a continuous cultural offer based on the idealization of the field.

We are based on making more human the terraced terrains, we bury our architecture in them, protecting the olive trees, vegetation that draws our intervention, highlighting only a building whose architecture drinks from the reflection of vernacular buildings and their materials. We reinterpret the “Riu- Rau”, a characteristic building of this area. The arches have been deformed and are placed in response to external incitements, such as views or sunlight. The roof becomes a folded sheet of bright colours, instilling optimism. In this way, the CEM is contextualized in its location thanks to the insertion of outdoor landscapes in the interior design.

The global project is the sum of three actions separated in time and developed in several phases, where the premise of each one was acting as a link with the other one and joining the existing landscape, creating an inseparable and perfectly connected complex.

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Architects
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Crystalzoo. Lead architects.- José Luis Campos Rosique.

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Design team
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Juan Parra (Architect), Ivón Omar Fernández (Technician), Eduardo Díez (Engineer).
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Developers
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Excelentísimo Ayuntamiento de La Nucía.
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Builder
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Infranostrum SL.
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Area
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Gross built area.- 1.131,20 sqm.
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Dates
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2014.
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Location
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Polígono 6, El Cautivador, Parcela 181, La Nucía, Alicante, Spain.
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Photography
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Crystalzoo is based on the idea of ​​the office as a forum for debate and multidisciplinary collaboration where different concepts and individual skills combine to enrich the whole. It is considered one of Alicante's 6 best architecture firms and between the best 300 studios in Spain, during four years in a row since 2011. Among our successes, we find the exhibition of Hotel Balneario in Gijón in the MOMA, New York, 2006, 1st Prize at FOPA 2007 for the the Library of San Vicente del Raspeig.

José Luis Campos Rosique (Alicante, 1971), architect by UPV in 1999, 1st Prize for End of Degree Project by Generalitat Valenciana. He won the 1st Prize for the Public Library of San Vicente del Raspeig and the International Competition for the Thalassotherapy Centre in Gijón in 2002. He founded Aranea group in 2003 and was second in three international competitions Europan 7, Luarca 2003 and Europan 8, Sintra 2005 and Ceuta 2005 among others. In late 2005, he published the Journal zombiTour_00. In 2006 he founded Crystalzoo, architecture firm which he actually runs.

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Published on: March 18, 2014
Cite: "Environmental Education Centre by CrystalZoo" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/environmental-education-centre-crystalzoo> ISSN 1139-6415
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