Starting from the Tower, different places follow one another, going through the building from outside to inside and vice versa. The result is a school where classrooms do not respond to a typological repetition but to an increasing programmatic continuity like the Fibonacci sequences that we find in nature.
The school is located within the old Can Fargues gardens. It connects directly with the old orchard that has been converted into a patio. The classrooms are accommodated in the existing spaces and only when it is indispensable, new volumes are inserted, like free-standing boxes, inside the old spaces.
Description of project by BAMMP
- ADAPTATION OF THE WORK TO THE ENVIRONMENT
Being a rehabilitation of an existing building, the adaptation to the environment is basically focused on the access and the relationship of the intermediate spaces with the garden. The main access to the school is the same as it has been for centuries in the old farmhouse. The outdoor spaces reconvert their use, giving identity to the new school. The central patio makes the transition in the arrival of the urban space; The galleries and porches expand the possibilities of the educational program with the exterior and synergy with the neighborhood.
- SINGULARITY AND CHARACTER
Keeping the patio as access, a typologically characteristic space of this type of buildings, is also recognized and the overall vision of the farmhouse and the medieval tower is prioritized.
Incorporating the nucleus of the new vertical communication staircase adjacent to the medieval tower, makes it easier to read as a historical element that generates the farmhouse. Furthermore, the position of the new vertical circulation in the heart of the farmhouse minimizes interior routes.
The main pieces of the school program; the music rooms are placed around the vertical circulation core attached to the tower and configure common spaces closely connected to the main memory of the building.
In general, when possible, the spaces are adapted to the new uses without more intervention than the necessary infrastructures, for example, the sequence of three old ground floor rooms is configured as a single space, allowing the location of the room for instrumental groups. It is the widest space, unique in structure and height and the fact that it can be accessed independently from the school allows small-format events to be held, available to the neighborhood.
- RESOURCE ECONOMY
The new program is a Music School, and the classrooms and rehearsal rooms have very important acoustic and thermal requirements. This determines how to intervene in the farmhouse in an austere way, through a selection process that only intervenes in a singular and neutral way in the acoustic boxes. The rest is cleaned and what is left is left. In such a way that the contrast makes the existing take a new role.
- RIGUROSITY IN THE TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF MAINTENANCE AND ENERGY SAVING
The intention is to reduce as much as possible the energy demand and take advantage of all the passive characteristics of the building. The old farmhouses were a good response to the climatic conditions of the environment through solutions with highly efficient sustainable parameters. It is intended not to abandon these characteristics, especially in the management of solar energy for lighting and heating, the increase in efficiency when necessary, active systems and the healthy management of spaces.
