For the Local Social La Sauleda, Sarquella Torres and Marc Riera locate the classrooms and offices within the original volume, while the extension houses a multipurpose room equipped with pivoting mirrors. These elements create a changing interior geometry, establishing introspective visual relationships around the courtyard.
The project is articulated through different envelopes, arranged according to their degree of contact with the exterior, which extend across the triangular plot and respond to the urban forces of the surroundings. The intervention organises the public space through a plaza and a domestic-scale courtyard, connected by the entrance located at the intersection of both areas. A perforated wall defines the courtyard, where a plane tree filters the light and simultaneously functions as a bench, railing and roof support.
La Sauleda Social Center by Sarquella Torres + Marc Riera. Photograph by Joan Guillamat. La Sauleda Social Center by Sarquella Torres + Marc Riera.
Project description by Sarquella Torres + Marc Riera
La Sauleda neighborhood was built in the 1960s to accommodate a wave of new workers that doubled the population of Palafrugell. The construction barrack became the center of neighborhood meetings that were continuously adapted over time. In 2014, a new proposal was put forward to double the floor area of the small community space.
Because of its small size, the extension in not conceived as a new grafted volume, but as a coherent continuation of what already exists. The pitched roof and its concrete cornice bring the new construction together. A new roof with memory, where neighborhood activities meet under one roof.
The existing building, drifting in its triangular plot, grows guided by urban forces and aligns itself with the streets to organize the public space: A public access plaza and an unexpected patio with domestic conditions. The entrance is located at the intersection of both arms and connects to the courtyard. A perforated wall responds to the sloping street: it cloisters the patio and its old light-filtering Plane tree, it becomes a bench, a handrail and the support for the roof.
In a project where everything is played out through the envelopes, the facades are arranged according to their degree of contact with the exterior.
The classrooms and offices are placed in the old volume, while the extension houses the multipurpose room and its pivoting mirrors. The interior geometry creates an introspective visual relationship among the different spaces facing the patio, allowing them to look towards one another.
